Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“You can keep it down,” Morris assured him. “Hold up on the aerobatics, Frank.”

“There it is,” Forrest said. He inclined the plane so Hicks was staring practically straight down at a cluster of buildings spread among rust-brown rocks, copses of green trees and low hills. He could make out a golf course spreading lush green against the waste, a tiny airstrip and an asphalt parking lot filled with dark cars and trucks, and rising from the parking lot, a green two-seat Army Cobra helicopter.

“Shit,” Forrest said, pulling back sharply on the wheel. The plane’s engines screamed and the Comanche swung around like a leaf in a strong wind.

The helicopter intercepted them and kept pace with the Comanche no matter what twists and turns Forrest executed. Flagg threw up and his vomit struck the side windows and Hicks and seemed to have a life of its own, hobbling about between surfaces and air. Hicks wiped it away frantically with his hands. Morris yelled and cursed.

The Cobra quickly outmaneuvered them. A uniformed and helmeted copilot in the rear seat gestured for them to land.

“Where’s your radio?” Hicks demanded. “Turn it on. Let them talk with us.”

“Hell no,” Forrest said. “I’d have to acknowledge—”

“Goddammit, Frank, they’ll shoot us down if you don’t go where he says,” Morris said, beard curling up and then back with the aircraft’s motion.

The helicopter’s copilot meticulously pointed down to the road below. Green cars and camouflaged trucks raced along the highway.

“We’d better land,” Forrest agreed. He peeled away from the helicopter, descended with astonishing speed, pitched his Comanche nose-high, and brought the aircraft down with at least four hard jounces on the gray asphalt airstrip.

Quietly heaving without issue, Hicks tried to control himself. By the time they were surrounded by what he took to be Secret Service men — in gray suits and brown — and military police in dark blue uniforms, he had his nausea largely under control. Flagg had bumped his head and lay stunned in his seat.

“God damn,” Morris said, none the worse for wear.

Arthur, stooped even more than usual, walked down the inn’s flagstoned hallway, barely glancing at the adobe walls and black, white, and gray Navajo carpets hung above antique credenzas. He knocked on Harry’s door and stepped back, hands in pockets. Harry opened the door and swung his arm impatiently for him to come in. Then he returned to the bathroom to finish shaving. They were all joining the President for dinner in the resort’s spacious dining room within the hour.

“He’s not taking it well,” Arthur said.

“Crockerman? What did you expect.”

“Better than this.”

“We’re all staring down the barrel of a gun.”

Arthur glanced up at the bright open doorway of the bathroom. “How are you feeling?”

Harry came out lifting one ear to poke the razor beneath it, his face lined with remnants of shaving cream. “Well enough,” he said. “I have to leave in two days for treatment. Warned you.”

Arthur shook his head. “No problem. It’s scheduled. The President’s leaving day after tomorrow. Tomorrow he confers with Xavier and Young.”

“What’s next?”

“Negotiations with the Australians. They show us theirs, we show them ours.”

“Then what?”

Arthur shrugged. “Maybe our bogey is a liar.”

“If you ask me,” Harry said, “the—”

“I know. The whole thing stinks.”

“But Crockerman’s swallowed the message. It’s working on him. Young and Xavier will have seen the site…Ah, Lord.” Harry wiped his face with a towel. “This is not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. Isn’t it a bitch? Life is always a bitch. We were so excited. Now it’s a nightmare.”

Arthur raised his hand. “Guess who was captured riding an airplane with three desert types?”

Harry blinked. “How the hell should I know?”

“Trevor Hicks.”

Harry stared. “You’re not serious.”

“The President is reading his novel now, which is trendy enough, and not quite pure coincidence. He obviously felt it was research material. The three desert types have been returned to Shoshone with a stiff reprimand and the loss of their plane and license. Hicks has been invited to dinner tonight.”

“That’s insane,” Harry said, turning off the bathroom light and picking up his dress shirt from the corner of the bed. “He’s a journalist.”

“Crockerman wants to talk things over with him. Get a second opinion.”

“He has a hundred opinions all around him.”

“I last met Hicks,” Arthur mused, “three years ago, at Cornell.”

“I’ve never met him,” Harry said. “I suppose I’d like to.”

“Now’s your chance.”

Arthur left his friend’s room a few minutes later, feeling worse than ever. He could not shake the sensibilities of a disappointed child. This had been a wonderful early Christmas present, bright and filled with hope for an unimaginable future, a future of humans interacting with other intelligences. Now, by Christmastime, the Earth might not even exist.

He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, not for the first time hoping by physical effort to shake the gloom.

The waitresses and cooks behind the white walls and copper-paneled pillars of the dining room had come up with a formal repast of prime rib, wild rice, and Caesar salad, the salad greens a trifle wilted because of the halt in deliveries, but all else quite acceptable. Around a rectangular table assembled from four smaller tables sat the principals of the action at the “Furnace,” plus Trevor Hicks, who acted as if he were taking it all in stride.

I have stumbled into a jackpot, he thought as the President and the Secretary of Defense entered and took their seats. Two Secret Service agents ate at a small table near the doorway.

Crockerman nodded cordially at Hicks, seated beside the President and across from Lehrman.

“These people have really done a fine job, haven’t they?” the President said after the main course had been served and the dishes cleared. By a kind of silent and mutual decree, all talk during dinner had been of trivial things. Now coffee was brought out in an old, dented silver service, poured into the owner’s personal Wedgwood bone china cups, and served around the long table. Harry declined. Arthur loaded his coffee with two cubes of sugar.

“So you are acquainted with Mr. Feinman and Mr. Gordon,” Crockerman said as they sat back with cups in hand.

“I know them by reputation, and met Mr. Gordon once when he was in command of BETC,” Hicks said. He smiled and nodded at Arthur as if for the first time this evening.

“I’m sure our people have asked you what moved you to come to Furnace Creek Inn.”

“It’s an ill-kept secret that something extraordinary is happening here,” Hicks said. “I was working on a hunch.”

The President gave another of his weak, almost discouraged smiles, and shook his head.

“I am amazed I was brought here,” Hicks continued, “after the way we were initially treated. And I am truly astounded to find you here, Mr. President, even though I had deduced you would be, by a chain of reasoning I’ve already described to your Army and Secret Service agents. Let us say, I am astounded to find my hunch proving out. What is happening here?”

“I’m not sure we can tell you that. I’m not sure why I’ve invited you to dinner, Mr. Hicks, and no doubt the other gentlemen here are even more unsure than I. Mr. Gordon? Do you object to the presence of a writer, a reporter?”

“I am curious. I do not object.”

“Because I think we are all out of our depth,” Crocker-man said. “I would like to solicit outside opinions.”