Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“Yes,” the Guest said.

“First question, then,” Arthur began. “What happened to your world?”

The Guest began its story.

“You’re privileged, folks,” the new duty officer, a young, slender black woman in gray blouse and slacks, told her four isolated charges.

Ed Shaw sat up on his bunk and blinked.

“The President’s coming here this evening. He wants to talk with you and commend you all.”

“How long until we get out of here?” Stella Morgan asked, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat and repeated her question.

“I have no idea, Miss Morgan. We have a message from your mother. It’s in your food drawer. We can relay any message from you to her that does not carry information as to your whereabouts or why you are here.”

“She’s putting on the pressure, isn’t she?” Minelli said. They had been discussing Stella’s mother, Bernice Morgan, a few hours earlier. By now, Stella was convinced, Mrs. Morgan would have marshaled half the lawyers in the state.

“She is indeed,” the duty officer said. “You’ve got quite a mother, Miss Morgan. We hope to get this all straightened out quickly. Labs are running tests around the clock. So far, we haven’t found any foreign biologicals on you or the Guest.”

Edward lay back on his bunk. “What’s the President going to do here?” he asked.

“He wants to talk to the four of you. That’s all we’ve been told.”

“And see the alien,” Minelli said. “Right?”

The duty officer smiled.

“When are you going to tell the press?” Reslaw asked.

“Lord, I wish we could do it right now. The Australians have told just about everything, and their case is even weirder than our own. They have robots coming out of their rocks.”

“What?” Edward sat on the edge of the bunk. “Is it on the news?”

“You should watch your TVs. There are newspapers in your food drawers now. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be getting CD machines. Infonet players. We don’t want you to be ignorant when the President gets here.”

Edward pulled open his food drawer, a stainless-steel tray that shuttled through the walls of the isolation unit, and pulled out a folded newspaper. There were no personal messages for him. His off-and-on girlfriend in Austin didn’t expect him back for a month or two; he hadn’t spoken to his mother in months. Edward began to regret his fancy-free life-style. He unfolded the newspaper and quickly scanned the headlines.

“Jesus, are you reading what I’m reading?” Reslaw asked.

“Yeah,” Edward said.

“They look like chrome-plated gourds.”

Edward flipped through the pages. The Australian Armed Forces had gone on alert. So had the United States Air Force and Navy. (Not the Army? Why not the Army?) Shuttle launches had been canceled, for reasons not clearly spelled out.

“Why robots?” Minelli asked after a few minutes of silence. “Why not more creatures?”

“Maybe they found out they can’t take the atmosphere and the heat,” Minelli suggested. “So they send remotes.”

That seemed to make the most sense. But if there were two disguised spacecraft — and why disguised? — then there could certainly be more.

“Maybe it’s an invasion,” Stella said. “We just don’t know it yet.”

Edward tried to recall the various science fiction scenarios he had read in books or seen in television and movies.

Motivations. No intelligent beings did things without motives. Edward had always sided with the scientists who thought Earth too puny and out of the way to be of interest to potential spacefarers. Of course, that was geocentrism in reverse. He wished he had read more on SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Nearly all of his science reading was in geology now; he seldom read magazines like Scientific American or even Science unless he needed to catch up on relevant articles.

Like most experts, he had grown insular. Geology had been his life. Now he doubted whether he would ever again have a private life. Even if the four of them were released — and that question worried him more than he wanted to admit — they would all be public figures, celebrities. Their lives would change enormously.

He shut off the player and turned to the comics page of the Los Angeles Times . Then he lay back on the bunk and tried to sleep. He had slept enough. His anger was getting to the point where he didn’t think he could control it. What would he tell Crockerman? Would he rattle the bars of his cage and hoot miserably? That seemed the only appropriate response.

“But look at the big picture,” he murmured to himself, not caring whether anybody else heard. “This is history.”

“This is history! ” Minelli yelled from his cell. “We’re history! Isn’t everybody thrilled?”

Edward heard Reslaw clapping slowly, resolutely. “I want to see my agent,” Minelli said.

Harry looked over the President’s itinerary — and their own, neatly appended with a plastic clip — and sighed. “The big time,” he said. “You’re used to it. I’m not. Stifling security and appointments timed by the minute.”

“I’ve grown accustomed to being away from it,” Arthur said. They shared a room in the Vandenberg Hilton, as the blocky, elongated, three-story concrete officer’s quarters had been dubbed by the shuttle pilots who generally occupied the austere rooms. Harry handed him the paper and shrugged.

“Mostly, I’m just tired,” he said, lying back and clasping his hands behind his neck. Arthur regarded him with some worry. “No, not because I’m ill,” Harry said testily. “It’s all this thinking. Coming to grips.”

“Tomorrow’s going to be very busy. Are you sure you’re up to it?” Arthur asked.

“I’m sure,”

“All right. Tonight we brief the President and whichever members of his staff and Cabinet he’s brought along, and then sit in on the President’s interviews with the Guest and the citizens.”

Harry grinned and shook his head, still dubious.

Arthur put the papers down on the table between their beds. “What will he do when he hears the story?”

“Christ, Art, you know the man better than I.”

“I never even met him before I was canned. When he was Veep, he stayed in the background. To me, he’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma. You read the papers; what do you think?”

“I think he’s a reasonably intelligent man who doesn’t belong in the White House. But then, I’m a radical from way back. I was a communist when I was three years old, remember. My father put me in red sweaters—”

“I’m serious. We have to soften the blow for him. And it will be a blow, however much he’s prepared by his staff. Seeing our Guest. Hearing from its own lips, or whatever…”

“That Earth is doomed. Lambs to the slaughter.”

It was Arthur’s turn to grin. The grin almost hurt. “No,” he said.

“You don’t believe it?”

Arthur stared up at the ceiling. “Don’t you feel something’s not right here?”

“Doom is never right,” Harry said.

“Questions. Lots and lots of questions. Why does this spacecraft allow ‘fleas’ to ride on its back and warn the populace before it can destroy their home?”

“Smugness. Absolute assurance of power. Assurance of our weakness.”

“When we have nuclear weapons, for Christ’s sake?” Arthur asked sharply. “A fighter pilot down in some jungle should show respect for the natives’ arrows.”

“It probably — it should have weapons and defenses we know nothing about.”