Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“Why hasn’t it used them?”

“Obviously, it used something to land huge rocks without being detected by radar or satellites.”

Arthur nodded agreement. “If what landed wasn’t something small, to start with…But that would contradict our Guest’s story.”

“All right,” Harry said, propping himself up against the wall with a pillow as a cushion. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. This Australian statement that their aliens have come in peace for all mankind. Same group of invaders? Apparently; same tactics. Bury themselves in a duck blind. One ship has ‘fleas,’ the other doesn’t. One ship has robot publicity agents. The other keeps silent.”

“We haven’t seen the complete text from the Australians.”

“No,” Harry admitted. “But they seem to have been candid so far. What’s the obvious answer?”

Arthur shrugged.

“Maybe the powers behind these ships are incredibly unorganized or inconsistent or just plain callous. Or there’s some sort of dispute within their organization.”

“Whether to eat the Earth or not.”

“Right,” Harry said.

“Do you think Crockerman will make this public?”

“No,” Harry said, fingers wrapped on his ample stomach. “He’d be crazy if he did. Think of the disruption. If he’s smart, he’s going to sit back and wait until the very last minute — he’s going to see how people react to the Good News spaceship.”

“Perhaps we should be bombing Death Valley right now.” Arthur stared at a painting over the nightstand between the two single beds. It showed four F-104 fighters climbing straight up over China Lake. “Cauterize the whole area. Act without thinking.”

“Make them madder than hell, right?” Harry said. “If they are being incredibly arrogant, then it means they have some assurance we can’t hurt them. Not even with nuclear weapons.”

Arthur sat in a straight-backed chair, facing away from the windows and the painting. High-tech fighters and bombers. Cruise missiles. Mobile laser defenses. Thermonuclear weapons. No better than stone axes.

“Captain Cook,” he said, and then gently bit his lower lip.

“Yes?” Harry encouraged.

“The Hawaiians managed to kill Captain Cook. His technology was at least a couple of hundred years more advanced than theirs. Still, they killed him.”

“What good did it do them?” Harry asked.

Arthur shook his head. “None, I guess. Some personal satisfaction, perhaps.”

President William D. Crockerman, sixty-three, was certainly one of the most distinguished-looking men in America. With his graying black hair, penetrating green eyes, sharply defined, almost aquiline nose, and lines of goodwill around his eyes and mouth, he might be equally the revered head of a corporation or some teenager’s favorite grandparent. On television or in person, he projected self-confidence and a trenchant wit. There could be no doubt that he took his job seriously, but not himself — this was the image portrayed, and it had won him election after election along his twenty-six-year career in public office. Crockerman had only lost one election: his first, as a mayoral candidate in Kansas City, Missouri.

He entered the Vandenberg isolation laboratory accompanied by two Secret Service agents, his national security advisor — a thin, middle-aged Boston gentleman named Carl McClennan — and his science advisor, David Rotterjack, soporifically calm and thirty-eight years of age. Arthur knew the tall, plump blond-haired Rotterjack well enough to respect his credentials without necessarily liking the man. Rotterjack had tended toward science administration, rather than doing science, in his days as director of several private biological research laboratories.

This entourage was ushered into the combination laboratory and viewing room by General Paul Fulton, Commander in Chief of Shuttle Launch Center 6, West Coast Shuttle Launch Operations. Fulton, fifty-three, had been a football player in his academy days, and still carried substantial muscle on his six-foot frame.

Arthur and Harry awaited them in the central laboratory, standing by the Guest’s covered window. Rotterjack introduced the President and McClennan to Harry and Arthur, and then introductions were made in a circle around the chairs. Crockerman and Rotterjack sat in the front row, with Harry and Arthur standing to one side.

“I hope you understand why I’m nervous,” Crockerman said, concentrating on Arthur. “I haven’t been hearing good things about this place.”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur said.

“These stories…these statements about what the Guest has been saying…Do you believe them?”

“We see no reason not to believe them, sir,” Arthur said. Harry nodded.

“You, Mr. Feinman, what do you think of the Australian bogey?”

“From what I’ve seen, Mr. President, it appears to be an almost exact analog of our own. Perhaps larger, because it’s contained within a larger rock.”

“But we haven’t the foggiest notion what’s in either of the rocks, do we?”

“No, sir,” Harry said.

“Can’t X-ray them, or set off blasts nearby and listen on the other side?”

Rotterjack grinned. “We’ve been discussing a number of sneaky ways to learn what’s inside. None of them seem appropriate.”

Arthur felt a twinge, but nodded. “I think discretion is best now.”

“What about the robots, the conflicting stories? Some folks in my generation are calling them ‘shmoos,’ did you know that, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Feinman?”

“The name occurred to us, sir.”

“Bringers of everything good. That’s what they’ve been telling Prime Minister Miller. I’ve spoken to him. He’s not necessarily convinced, or at least he doesn’t let us think he is, but…he saw no reason to keep everybody in the dark. It’s a different situation here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur said.

McClennan cleared his throat. “We can’t predict what kind of harm might come if we tell the world we have a bogey, and it says doomsday is here.”

“Carl takes a dim view of any plans to release the story. So we have four civilians locked up, and we have agents in Shoshone and Furnace Creek, and the rock is off limits.”

“The civilians are locked up for other reasons,” Arthur said. “We haven’t found any evidence of biological contamination, but we can’t afford to take chances.”

“The Guest appears to be free of biologicals, true?” Rotterjack asked.

“So far,” General Fulton said. “We’re still testing.”

“In short, it’s not happening the way we thought it might,” Crockerman said. “No distant messages in Puerto Rico, no hovering flying saucers, no cannon shells falling in the boondocks and octopuses crawling out.”

Arthur shook his head, smiling. Crockerman had a way of coercing respect and affection from those around him. The President cocked one thick dark eyebrow at Harry, then Arthur, then briefly at McClennan. “But it is happening.”

“Yessir,” Fulton said.

“Mrs. Crockerman told me this would be the most important meeting of my life. I know she’s right. But I am scared, gentlemen. I’ll need your help to get me through this. To get us through this. We are going to get through this, aren’t we?”

“Yes, sir,” Rotterjack said grimly.

Nobody else answered.

“I’m ready, General.” The President sat straight-backed in the chair and faced the dark window. Fulton nodded at the duty officer.

The curtain opened.

The Guest stood beside the table, apparently in the same position as when Arthur and Harry had left it the day before.

“Hello,” Crockerman said, his face ashen in the subdued room light. The Guest, with its light-sensitive vision, could see them perhaps more clearly than they saw it.