Arthur Clarke - Cradle

His eyes were wide from fright. “Jesus, Professor,” he said, glancing at the crowbar that Nick was wielding, “you might have killed me.”

“Shit, Jefferson,” Nick replied, the adrenaline still coursing through his system, “why didn’t you tell us it was you? And what were you doing in Carol’s room?” He looked at Troy accusingly.

Troy backed into the room and turned on the lights. The room was a disaster. It looked like Nick’s condominium when Carol had first walked through the front door.

Carol turned to Troy. “Why on earth…”

“I didn’t do it, angel,” he replied. “Honest Injun.” Troy looked at his two friends. “Sit down,” he said. “This will only take a second.”

Meanwhile Carol’s eyes were scanning the room. “Crap,” she said angrily, “all my cameras and film are gone. And virtually the entire telescope system, including the post-processor unit. Dale will shoot me.” She looked in one of the open drawers. “The assholes took my photographs from the first dive as well. They were in a large envelope on the right side of this top drawer.”

Carol sat down on the bed looking a little dazed. “All the film from the photographs that I took inside that place has been stolen. So much for my sensational story,” she said.

Nick tried to comfort her. “Who knows. Maybe they’ll turn up. And besides, yal still have all the negatives from the first dive.”

Carol shook her head. “It’s not the same thing.” She thought for a minute. “Damnit,” she said, “I should have kept the exposed film with me when we left the hotel to go to Troy’s apartment.” She looked at the two men and then brightened a bit. “Oh well,” she said. “There’s always tomorrow.”

Troy was still waiting patiently to give his explanation. He indicated for Nick to sit down on the bed next to Carol. “I’ll make this short and sweet,” he said. “Just the facts. I arrived here about seven o’clock. I came early because I wanted to make some modifications to your television set. I’ll explain why in a minute.

“The people in the hotel wouldn’t give me a key to your room so I came down here and fooled the card reader.” He smiled. “It’s no problem for someone who knows how these things work. Anyway, as soon as the green light came on and the guard bolt released, I heard the garden door slam. Someone had been in the room while I was opening the door. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he hightailed it around the corner of the building. He was a big man, not someone I recognized immediately. He was moving with difficulty, as if he were carrying something heavy.”

“Part of the ocean telescope,” Carol said.

“Go on,” added Nick. “What happened next? I want to hear why you were in Carol’s room working in the dark. I bet you’ll come up with a good story for that too.”

“That’s easy,” Troy said to Nick. “I was afraid the thief or thieves might come back. I didn’t want them to see me.”

“You’re amazing, Jefferson,” Nick responded. “You’re the kind of person who would tell a cop that you were exceeding the speed limit because you wanted to get to a filling station before you ran out of gas.”

“And the cop would believe him,” Carol remarked. They all laughed. The tension in the room was diffusing.

“All right,” said Nick. “Now tell us what you’ve done to the television. Incidentally, how did you get inside it? I thought these hotel sets were all alarmed.”

“They are,” Troy replied, “but it’s very simple to disable the alarm system. It always cracks me up. Somebody sells the hotel the idea that they can protect their property with these alarms. But the burglars can easily find out what system has been installed, buy the circuit data sheets, and completely disable the protection.”

Troy glanced around the room. He then checked his watch carefully. “Let’s see,” he said. “Why don’t you two move over here in these chairs. I think you’ll be able to see better.” Nick and Carol exchanged puzzled looks and arranged themselves as Troy had requested. “Now,” he continued in a surprisingly serious tone, “you will see what I believe is incontrovertible proof that my story about the aliens is true. They have told me, through this bracelet, that they are going to televise a short program from inside the vehicle at exactly seven-thirty. If I have translated their directions properly and made the correct modifications, this television should now be able to receive their transmission.”

He turned on the set and put it on channel 44. There was nothing but snow and static. “This is great, Troy,” Nick commented. “It will probably steal rating points from soap operas and music videos. Watching this requires even less intelligence—”

A picture suddenly appeared on the screen. The lighting was poor, but Carol immediately recognized herself in the scene. She was standing with her back to the cameras, her fingers moving around on top of what appeared to be a table.

An orchestral version of “Silent Night,” featuring an instrument not unlike an organ, accompanied the picture.

“That’s the music room I told you about,” Carol said to Nick. “I guess that warden thing had a video camera in all his paraphernalia.”

The television scene switched immediately to a close-up of Carol’s eyes. For five seconds her marvelous, frightened eyes filled almost the entire screen. She blinked twice before the camera pulled back and revealed her in front view. terrified, standing and shaking in her bathing suit. Carol shuddered as she recalled the horror of those seconds when the warden’s appendages intruded upon her person. It was all shown in the video, some parts even in slow motion. One of the featured scenes was the deliberate movement of the bristles across her chest, including both her erect nipples. Oh my God, she thought. I hadn’t realized they were erect. Maybe fear does that. Carol squirmed. She felt surprisingly embarrassed in front of Nick.

There was a jump discontinuity in the program. In the next scene the three of them were looking at Troy, lying on his back on the floor somewhere, with enough wires and cords attached to him that he could have been Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians. The camera panned around the room. Two wardens were in one of the corners. Their upper body attachments were not even similar, but they both had the same central body, amoebalike, that had confronted Troy and Carol. On the other side of the room a pair of carpets were standing together. From their motions it looked as if they were engaged in a conversation. Nick and Carol and Troy watched while the camera stayed fixed for about ten seconds. The carpets apparently finished conferring and then flipped off in separate directions.

The final frames of the transmission were a close-up of Troy’s head showing more than a hundred probes and inserts connected to his brain. Then the screen went back to snow and static. “Wowee,” said Nick after a moment. “Can I have an instant replay?” He stood up from the bed. “You were terrific,” he remarked to Carol, “but I think your scenes will have to be edited if we want a PG rating.”

Carol looked up at him and blushed slightly. “Sorry, Nick, but I don’t think you make a good comedian. We have one already,” she nodded at Troy, “and I think that’s enough.” She glanced at the clock beside her bed. “Now I figure we have fifteen minutes or so to make plans. No more. And I have to dress as well. Why don’t you tell Troy about your decision and what you have concluded about the Santa Rosa loot while I change my clothes.” She grabbed a blouse and a pair of pants and headed for the bathroom.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Nick protested. “Aren’t we going to discuss who it was that broke into my condominium and your hotel room?”