The Fresco (44 page)

And, she thought, firmly, decisively, without her usual vacillation, it wasn't up to her whether he did or not.

TUESDAY

A day or so after Benita left for Pistach-home, the members of Morse's cabal, sans Morse himself, had taken themselves down to the farm in Virginia where they'd set up camp in the house and waited for word from the predators. It was their opinion that though the predators had pretended to leave Earth, they wouldn't go far, and the best thing to do was wait at the farm for them to show up. They had been waiting for almost a week, and were not the better tempered for it.

“Nothing,” Dink said in an aggrieved tone, coming in from his tenth circuit of the surrounding area. “No sign of them at all.”

“Any word from NASA?” asked Briess, who was stretched on a cot by the window.

Dink hung up his jacket and slumped into the nearest chair. “The surveillance satellite that was kicked into a moon-loop got a clear picture of what are obviously ships, three of them, one big and two small. The satellite was a quick and dirty job, one loop only, so we don't know if they're still there.”

“Are there more of them, that's what I want to know,” said
McVane. “We got damn little information for all that money.” He was slumped in a chair by the empty fireplace, his usually impeccable uniform rumpled, his tie loose, an open beer can at his elbow.

Dink shook his head ponderously. “Be thankful we got what we did. For such a hasty modification, we're doing well to get any pictures at all. The ships are huge. They could hold a lot more than we ever saw here on the ground.”

“I wonder what the hell they're playing at!” growled McVane. “They've obviously pulled some stunt with the Pistach, for they now say the Confederation has no right to stop them coming here. They've been seen hunting and eating people all over the world, or at least the results have been seen, if not the critters themselves. What happened to the agreement we were supposed to have with them?”

“Could be they've decided they don't need us anymore,” murmured Arthur. “If the Pistach have no authority to stop them, what do they need us for?”

Dink nodded. “Or maybe the Pistach weren't as bamboozled as they thought. We haven't heard anything about them recently, either.”

“My understanding was that even if the Confederation does anything about the predators being here, it would take forever,” commented Briess.

“Unless it's a unilateral action,” said McVane. “Maybe the Pistach went on the warpath all by themselves.”

“Our profilers say no,” said Arthur. “They read the Pistach as nonviolent and conformist. Though they're criticism proof when they start working with new races, when they're finished their work is subject to review, and it seems they really care what other races think and say about them. They're not likely to risk unpopular action.”

“Maybe those others, those what-you-call-'ems,” murmured Briess. “Maybe they've stepped in. The ones that got Morse pregnant.”

“Morse claims he's not pregnant,” reminded Arthur.

“Yeah, well, he claims he's a Christian, too,” said Briess, “but last time I looked, Christians don't assault their wives.”

“Lupé?” asked Dink. “I didn't know that.”

“Not Lupé, the ex-Mrs. Morse. You should read the medical reports.” Briess sniggered.

“Let that alone,” said McVane. “It's past. Focus on the current rapes and assaults, by the Inkleozese, even though it's only pro-life politicians and preachers they've done it to so far.”

“Be thankful for small mercies,” said Briess.

“You're pro-life,” Dink commented.

Briess widened the slit of his mouth into an excruciating smile. “No, my friend, I'm merely anti-woman. I was born in the wrong system. Once female life expectancy exceeded that of men in the U.S., it was obvious we were doing something wrong.”

“What you got against old ladies?” asked Dink. “Your mother was probably an old lady.”

“Bingo,” said Briess, with a chilly smile. “Let's change the subject, if you don't mind. Since it's obvious we're not getting anywhere waiting here, let's leave them a message and get back to Washington. Morse has already subpoenaed the so-called intermediary for another inquiry before his committee, and once he starts in on her sexual habits, with her husband testifying to her depravity, people will assume it's true that she had a relationship with the president and the ETs and possibly her dog.”

“I don't like this,” murmured Prentice Arthur. “It smacks too much of McCarthyism.”

Dink snorted. “You wanna grow corn, somebody's got to turn over the dirt, Arthur! Now that we don't have independent counsels with unlimited budgets to do it, we'll have to pick up the spades ourselves. I suggest we get back and start digging.”

“I hope you've got Bert dried out enough to be believable,” said McVane. “When I saw him on
20/20
he certainly wasn't!”

“We've got him stashed away,” said Dink, with a feral smile. “I'm told he responds well to pain.”

They were interrupted by the blink of a red light and a hesitant beeping from a metal box by the window.

“There they are,” breathed Briess. “Better late than never.”

McVane was already on his feet beside the machine. “It doesn't read their signatures,” he said doubtfully. “Too hot for a Wulivery or Fluiquosm, too cool for a Xankatikitiki. Too many for any of ‘em.”

“Where are they?” asked Dink, peering out the window.

“Over to our left, among the trees,” muttered McVane.

Dink picked up his glasses, put on his jacket, and went out onto the rickety porch. From the end of it he had a good view of the trees. McVane and Arthur came out onto the porch behind him as Dink spoke over his shoulder. “Must be the invisible Fluiquosm wearing heated suits!”

A faint yelp came from behind him, and he turned to find himself alone on the porch. He went to the door and looked in to see Briess still hovering over the machine.

He knocked on the door frame. Briess looked up, and not seeing anyone, went out onto the porch himself. Nobody there but him. Very shortly thereafter, nobody there at all.

WEDNESDAY

Benita had thought there might be a quiet interlude before the large ship arrived, but the morning after her return she received a subpoena, dated several days before and routed through the White House. She was to testify that day before Morse's committee, this time about her sexual involvement with the ETs and any current members of government. Even though the president had told her to expect it, it made her furious. It was all part of Morse's choreography, of course, part of the shit ballet he hoped to stage.

Chad picked her up, as before, and they arrived at the hearing chamber at the time specified to find the inquiry in some disarray because Morse wasn't there. The vice chairman wasn't there. Several of Morse's staffers weren't there. Eventually, someone was appointed to be chairman pro tem, and Benita swore to tell the truth and was then accused of sexual contact with the ETs and/or the president, et al.

“Where on earth did you hear such a thing?” she asked, affronted.

“We ask the questions,” muttered the senator, slightly red in the face.

“Well, all I can say is that if you listen to alcoholics like
my husband, from whom I am separated, he'll say anything anyone tells him to say for ten dollars or a drink, whichever is closest.”

“Are you denying these allegations?”

“Of course I'm denying these allegations. They're ridiculous.”

There was muttering, leaning, whispering. The interrogator, face rather red, leaned into his microphone. “Do you have any knowledge of where your…husband is, Mrs. Alvarez?”

She answered honestly. “I couldn't tell you where he is, sir. He's been working for Senator Morse for some time, so maybe the senator can tell you.”

More consternation.

“Why do you claim he works for Senator Morse?”

“With the envoys here, it's almost impossible to do anything secretly, sir. According to the envoys, a Mr. Dinklemier and a Mr. Arthur have been paying Bert Shipton to make up stories about me on instructions from Senator Morse.”

Whispers, covered mikes, people turning redder.

“Perhaps you can tell us about your relationship with the president?”

“We covered this ground previously, gentlemen, but I'll refresh your memories. I first saw the president in his office on the day after I delivered the envoys' message to Congressman Martinez. We talked for five or ten minutes, during which time he thanked me for my efforts. The door to the outer office was open during my visit, and General Wallace was standing in the doorway. The second time I met the president, his wife was there, and that was when he asked me to see if the envoys would take me to their planet for a firsthand view. I have just returned from there.”

Consternation. Someone got up hastily and left the room.

“And since then?” asked the man with the gavel, his mouth remaining open as she replied.

“Since then, I have seen and talked with the president and his wife in company with Mr. Riley, who accompanied me
on the expedition to Pistach-home and other worlds. During that journey we saw and were greeted by three other races besides the Pistach. These were the Flibotsi, the Thwakians, and the Vixbot. Our entire journey was recorded, and when the security people are through with the recordings, I'm sure they'll be shown to the American people, and to the world.”

There was more whispering, more running back and forth, and finally the senator who had assumed the chair decided he didn't want it anymore. Sounding as severe and threatening as he was able to manage around the distractions, the chairman pro tem told her she was still under subpoena and would have to appear again later.

The big talk on the TV blather shows that night concerned the disappearance of all the pregnant men plus some others who had worked for them. Among them, it was alleged, was the intermediary's husband. Much was made of the fact that Bert had been scheduled to appear before the same committee Benita had been subpoenaed for, that she had denied his allegations, and that he himself had disappeared. Benita smiled at this, saying a brief litany of thanks to the Inkleozese, who had removed him even though he wouldn't be useful as a breeder. Getting Bert out of circulation relieved her mind a good deal. If he couldn't get a drink for a year or two, it should do him a world of good!

Some TV channels were still showing interviews with him, but they were obviously old ones. Though he didn't look drunk, precisely, he was definitely glassy eyed from something. The only hopeful item reported was that no further hearings were planned until Senator Morse could be found. Benita felt that by that time the situation would be either improved or lost. Either way, it would be long past crying about.

Next morning, the disappearances were still in the news. The Senate demanded an investigation. Lupé Roybal-Morse suggested that Morse may have been so upset by being pregnant that he simply went off to be alone. His colleagues pretended to believe that was impossible, though she knew him better than they did. Within a few hours, it was reported on CNN that every man used as a brooder had van
ished. The president issued a statement saying he had been informed the Inkleozese had wanted to take them to a safe place, where they would not be harassed by the news media, that he was assured they would be returned.

Surprisingly, except for the religious far right (those who were left) nobody screamed much about it. Comics had a field day, of course. Jay Leno did a Morse-travelogue, to Bee or not to Bee. Actually, Benita thought, the Inkleozese looked more like wasps, but it was close enough to be funny.

Benita called Angelica, who seemed to be coping all right, though she wanted to know where her father was. Benita said she didn't know where he was being taken, which was true, astronomy not being her forte. “However, I'm assured he's safe, just as Carlos is safe. You don't have to worry about either of them.”

“I haven't been. But then, I feel guilty because I haven't been. You know?”

“Remember what I told you about drowning, Angel. Try to keep your head above water.”

The following day the disappearances were replaced in the headlines by reports of massive slaughters in Northern Ethiopia, coastal Bangladesh, and among the Chinese settlers in Tibet, with lots and lots of gory pictures, enough to keep the media scrambling for the next few weeks, even if nothing else happened at all.

Chiddy and Vess took five days to make their trip, arriving back on Earth in what
Star Trek
would call a shuttle, except that it was morphable. The big ship, they said, was on the back of the moon, a considerable distance from those of the predators. Benita phoned Chad, as arranged, and within the hour a parade of long black limousines bearing dark-suited “spiritual advisors” began to arrive at Benita's back door. Benita didn't see any of them. They came in the door, got into the elevator, and vanished. The Reverend—the president's spiritual advisor, the Big SA—wasn't scheduled to arrive until the President did.

The Inkleozese arrived by their usual form of transport: abrupt materialization. Her Exactitude arrived first. She provided Benita with both a tape and a disc of the recorded
voice Benita had asked for, then suggested Benita go to the bathroom and stay there while they and their “baggage” transitted the living room. Since no one was willing to gamble on how things would turn out, everyone was being very careful of what Benita saw and didn't see, just in case she had to testify about it. She took the opportunity for a long, luxurious shower while poor Sasquatch, who'd tried a sniff at one of the Inkleozese and had been abruptly flattened for it, lay on the bathroom rug whining at her. Poor dog, he didn't know what to think or who to bark at or even who to smell.

Late that evening, right after the arrival of the Big SA and the president, it was Chad and Benita's turn. Benita had already arranged for Simon to do dog duty again, and he'd wished her well. She had hinted to him that something epochal was happening, so he'd feel better about all the bother she was causing him. She really didn't want to get back and find she had no job. She liked her job. Besides, if they were successful in their efforts, things would go back to more or less normal, on its way to being forgotten except by historians, and nobody would give her a pension for her part in it.

The shuttle delivered the last few of them to the larger ship on the moon, pausing there while the Inkleozese delivered cease and desist documents to the predator ships, denying their right to stay on Earth without decision by the Confederation. While they were waiting, all the Earthians had their pictures taken in front of the window wall of the big ship. The little “SAs” had been promised they could use the trip as a CV item later on, so pictures were absolutely essential, that and bits of moon rock and certificates signed by the president and by Chiddy or Vess. Chiddy protested at putting himself in the position of seeming to endorse the Earthian visit, when it was being required by the Inkleozese, so Chad suggested he write “Real moon rock; best wishes” in Pistach. It was doubtful anyone would ever know the difference.

While everyone slept a good bit of the time, all the waking hours were spent working. Half a dozen animatronics people were working with the recorded voice Benita had ob
tained from the Inkleozese, and all the artists (who would pretend to be little SAs, when they arrived at Pistach-home) had copies of a Fresco panel or panels, copies that had been enhanced, enlarged, and had the colors corrected by the FBI labs from those Chad had recorded during the previous trip. The conversation that went on about them was constant and fascinating, or so Benita thought. She wouldn't have dreamed there were that many things to say about artworks that all the little “SAs” agreed could be compared, at best, to Grandma Moses on a very bad day. The talk about color and composition and message went on, deep into every “night” that they were aboard. (Both Chad and Benita were grateful that the larger ship was able to prevent the exhaustion they'd felt in the smaller one.)

Though the humans occasionally encountered Chiddy and Vess, nothing was discussed where they would be able to hear it. The Inkleozese had assured Benita the Earthian quarters were strictly private, and the ship was large enough that the Pistach were encountered only at meals.

Each member of the group had been given a copy of Chiddy's journal also, as a guide to Pistach thought. At one point in the journey, the Big SA, looking very stern, asked Benita just what Chiddy meant when he wrote “dearest” Benita.

“Chiddy's an affectionate sort of person,” she answered, after a moment's thought. “I assume he, or it, or ai, feels toward me pretty much the same way I feel about my dog, or perhaps, my dog about me, when I come home from work. I mean, that's a cross-species relationship, but we both have a sense of security and pleasure in it, and perhaps even rapture. Sasquatch does act rapturous sometimes.”

“There is no physical…ah…?”

“There is no physical ah,” Benita confirmed. “Beyond what might amount to a scratch behind the ears. Not that intimacy would be impossible. Chad says he's fairly well convinced there's a point to point correspondence between their actual forms and any morphed form they adopt. Morphing isn't natural to them, you know. It's something they've discovered how to do, and it takes some kind of implanted electronic assist.”

“Why do they do it?” he demanded.

“I think it has to do with exploration. If you're going to a planet that's all water, you need gills. If you're going to one that's all desert, you need a body that conserves moisture. And on any new planet, you need to be able to look like the natives while you're finding things out.”

Though the Big SA had a very odd look on his face when she finished, Benita was quite satisfied with her analysis. It was probably as close to the truth as she could get.

The Big SA went on to ask her what she knew about the Pistach religion.

“Chiddy calls the Pistach god, Aitun. It means ‘The one who is.' Chiddy says the Pistach don't presume to know what Aitun is up to or desires. They have a duty, however, to infer purpose from what they see and discover. They have inferred that as an intelligent race who can see that intelligence is a rarity among the stars, they must help spread intelligence throughout the galaxy. They read this as Aitun's possible intent without ever unequivocally saying it is Aitun's intent. They avoid saying what God wants or means. They regard races who do as prideful and arrogant.

“Chiddy also says there are over five thousand picky little gods among the races ai knows of,” she said. “A lot of them inceptorish…”

“Inceptorish?”

“You've read the journal, Reverend. Inceptorish. Virile. Arbitrary, egocentric, and often belligerent. Anyhow, Chiddy says none of the five thousand have sufficient universality to be the god of everyone. Chiddy includes our Earthian gods in the five thousand.”

“There is only one Earthian God,” said the SA, in a ponderous tone.

“You are no doubt correct,” said Benita. “But Chiddy says none of the ones humans talk about in the Western world are it, and none of the hundreds they talk about in the Eastern and undeveloped worlds are it, either.”

They stopped on Inkleoza, to drop off the Inkleozese and their brooders and to pick up a couple of replacement asses
sors who were beyond breeding age. Chiddy said Inkleozese were needed on board, as they were the Confederation's accepted witnesses and attestors, but he thought the president and the male members of his entourage would be more relaxed with nonbreeding Inkleozese. Even though the Inkleozese and their brooders had stayed in a separate section of the ship, Benita and Chad noticed a definite lowering of tension when they were in transit again. The new Inkeleozese were very jolly, fatter than their predecessors and much less austere.

The balance of the trip was over far too soon. Each one of those playing the part of a little SA complained that he or she wasn't ready. Each one dithered, getting all his or her supplies packed into the smallest possible volume. When everyone was ready to disembark, each took his or her predetermined place in the procession. First the two Inkleozese, escorting the president, who was robed in blue with a blue headdress, looking like someone on a Mardi Gras float, but very dignified. Then Chiddy and Vess, escorting the Big SA, also clad in blue, also dignified, though more meditative. Then the little SAs in robes of a lighter and less piercing sapphire, two by two, thirty-six of them—including the specialists from Hollywood, carrying their special paraphernalia—all looking solemn and dedicated, some of them bearing “altars,” large chests that held the equipment. Blue was a high caste color on Pistach planets, so Chiddy had told them, and the plan required that the Pistach realize these Earthians were very high caste and dead serious about the whole thing. Chad and Benita, being of infinitely lower rank, brought up the rear.