Connie Willis - The Best of Connie Willis

He hadn’t. The parking lot was deserted. I slid the van’s back door open, half-hoping this was the Altairi’s idea of astray, but they weren’t inside, or on any of the streets for an area two miles north of DU. I drove up University Boulevard and then slowly up and down the side streets, terrified I’d find them squished on the pavement.

It was already dark. I called Calvin. “No sign of them,” I told him. “Maybe they went back to the mall. I’m going to go over there and—”

“No, don’t do that,” he said. “Dr. Morthman and the FBI are there. I’m watching it on CNN. They’re searching Victoria’s Secret. Besides, the Altairi aren’t there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they’re here at my apartment.”

“They are?” I said, weak with relief. “Where did you find them?”

He didn’t answer me. “Don’t take any major streets on your way over here,” he said. “And park in the alley.”

“Why? What have they done?” I asked, but he’d already hung up.

The Altairi were standing in the middle of Calvin’s living room when I got there. “I came back here to check on alternate lyrics for ‘God Rest Ye’ and found them waiting for me,” Calvin explained. “Did you park in the alley?”

“Yes, at the other end of the block. What have they done?” I repeated, almost afraid to ask.

“Nothing. At least nothing that’s been on CNN,” he said, gesturing at the TV, which was showing the police searching the candle store. He had the sound turned down, but across the bottom of the screen was the logo “Aliens AWOL.”

“Then why all the secrecy?”

“Because we can’t afford to let them find the Altairi till we’ve figured out why they’re doing what they’re doing. Next time it might not be as harmless as going astray. And we can’t go to your apartment. They know where you live. We’re going to have to hole up here. Did you tell anybody you were working with me?”

I tried to think. I’d attempted to tell Dr. Morthman about Calvin when I got back from the mall, but I hadn’t gotten far enough to tell him Calvin’s name, and when Reverend Thresher had demanded, “Who are you?” all I’d said was, “He’s with me.”

“I didn’t tell anybody your name,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure nobody saw the Altairi coming here.”

“But how can you be sure? Your neighbors—”

“Because the Altairi were waiting for me inside,” he said. “Right where they are now. So either they can pick locks, walk through walls, or teleport. My money’s on teleportation. And it’s obvious the commission doesn’t have any idea where they are,” he said, pointing at the TV, where a mugshot-like photo of the Altairi was displayed, with “Have you seen these aliens?” and a phone number to call across their midsections. “And luckily, I went to the grocery store and stocked up the other day so I wouldn’t have to go shopping in between all my concerts.”

“Your concerts! And the All-City Sing! I forgot all about them,” I said, stricken with guilt. “Weren’t you supposed to have a rehearsal tonight?”

“I canceled it,” he said, “and I can cancel the one tomorrow morning if I have to. The Sing’s not till tomorrow night. We’ve got plenty of time to figure this out.”

If they don’t find us first, I thought, looking at the TV, where they were searching the food court. Eventually, when they couldn’t find the Altairi anywhere, they’d realize I was missing, too, and start looking for us. And the reporters today, unlike Leo, had all been videotaping. If they put Calvin’s picture on TV with a number to call, one of his church choir members or his seventh-graders would be certain to call in and identify him.

Which meant we’d better work fast. I picked up the list of songs and actions we’d compiled. “Where do you want to start?” I asked Calvin, who was starting through a stack of LPs.

“ Not with ‘Frosty the Snowman,’” he said. “I don’t think I can stand any chasing here and there.”

“How about, ‘I Wonder as I Wander’?”

“Very funny,” he said. “Since we know they respond to ‘kneeling,’ why don’t we start with that?”

“Okay.” We played them “fall on your knees” and “come adore on bended knee” and “whose forms are bending low,” some of which they responded to and some of which they didn’t, for no reason we could see.

“‘The First Noel’ has ‘full reverently upon their knee’ in it,” I said, and Calvin started toward the bedroom to look for it.

He stopped as he passed in front of the TV. “I think you’d better come look at this,” he said, and turned it up.

“The Altairi were not at the mall, as we had hoped,” Dr. Morthman was saying, “and it has just come to our attention that a member of our commission is also missing, Margaret Yates.” Video of the scene at the lab came on behind Dr. Morthman and the reporter, with me shouting for him to shut the music off. Any second a picture of Calvin would appear, demanding to know which carol they were playing.

I grabbed up my phone and called Dr. Morthman, hoping against hope they couldn’t trace cellphone calls and that he’d answer even though he was on TV.

He did, and the camera blessedly zoomed in on him so only a tiny piece of the video remained visible. “Where are you calling from?” he demanded. “Did you find the Altairi?”

“No,” I said, “but I think I have an idea where they might be.”

“Where?” Dr. Morthman said.

“I don’t think they’ve gone astray. I think they may be responding to one of the other words in the song. ‘Rest’ or possibly—”

“I knew it,” Reverend Thresher said, shoving in front of Dr. Morthman. “They were responding to the words ‘Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.’ They’ve gone to church. They’re at the One True Way right this minute.”

It wasn’t what I had in mind, but at least a photo of the One True Way Maxichurch was better than one of Calvin. “That should give us at least two hours. His church is way down in Colorado Springs,” I said, turning the TV back down, and went back to playing songs to the Altairi and logging their responses and non-responses, but half an hour later, when Calvin went into the bedroom to try to find a Louis Armstrong CD, he stopped in front of the TV again and frowned.

“What happened?” I said, dumping the pile of sheet music on my lap on the couch beside me and sidling past the Altairi to get to him. “Didn’t they take the bait?”

“Oh, they took it, all right,” he said and turned up the TV.

“We believe the Altairi are in Bethlehem,” Dr. Morthman was saying. He was standing in front of a departures board at DIA.

“Bethlehem? ” I said.

“It’s mentioned in the lyrics twice,” Calvin said. “At least if they’re off in Israel it gives us more time.”

“It also gives us an international incident,” I said. “In the Middle East, no less. I’ve got to call Dr. Morthman.” But he must have turned his cell phone off, and I couldn’t get through to the lab.

“You could call Reverend Thresher,” Calvin said, pointing to the TV screen.

Reverend Thresher was surrounded by reporters as he got into his Lexus. “I’m on my way to the Altairi right now, and tonight we will hold a Praise Worship Service, and you’ll be able to hear their Christian witness and the Christmas carols that first brought them to the Lord—”

Calvin switched the TV off. “It’s a sixteen-hour flight to Bethlehem,” he said encouragingly. “It surely won’t take us that long to figure this out.”

The phone rang. Calvin shot me a glance and then picked it up. “Hello, Mr. Steinberg,” he said. “Didn’t you get my message? I canceled tonight’s rehearsal.” He listened awhile. “If you’re worried about your entrance on page twelve, we’ll run over it before the Sing.” He listened some more. “It’ll all come together. It always does.”