Charles Sheffield: The Spheres of Heaven

“It’s nice to hear that. Very nice. But as a matter of fact …” Kubo wasn’t sure how to say this. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know why we’re here.”

Dougal MacDougal took over. “Captain Flammarion performed the invaluable service of locating you—”

“Not too difficult, I would have thought. I’m known through this whole sector.”

“ — and guided me here. Mr. Dalton, I cannot overemphasize the importance of this visit, and what I am about to say to you. When the other species of the Stellar Group imposed their quarantine on humans, restricting us to travel at most one lightyear from Sol, humanity began to stifle. Instead of being able to look outward to new frontiers, we have been forced to turn in on ourselves. We are beginning to choke and suffocate, to weaken our resolve, to lose our drive.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. Earth has felt the effects more than anybody.”

“But Earth people are used to living in a static world, a sluggish backwater where opportunities are small and progress is minimal.”

Kubo Flammarion avoided looking at Dalton. If the Ambassador were seeking favors, he was going about it the hard way.

MacDougal continued, “So when there is a chance, no matter how small a chance, of changing our status and removing the quarantine, nothing in the solar system can have a higher priority. Such a chance now exists! Next week, at their request, an Assembly of the Stellar Group is planned to take place in the Ceres Star Chamber. There will be representatives of the Tinkers of Mercantor, the Pipe-Rillas of Eta Cassiopeiae, and the Angels of Sellora. All the known intelligent species!”

“Except for humans. Are we being invited?”

“We are. The Stellar Group requires that our representative be present, otherwise the Assembly will not occur.”

“That’s you, isn’t it? You are the human Ambassador to the Stellar Group.”

“I am the Ambassador. That is quite true.” Dougal MacDougal stood up straighter, but at the same time he seemed to Flammarion to have mysteriously shrunk a few inches. “However, this will be an exception to the usual rules for Assembly. Although I will be permitted to be present — as an observer — the Stellar Group insists that a different human be present as a participant. They inform us, very specifically, that Chan Dalton — you — have to be that human.”

“Do they indeed.” Dalton sat up higher in his raised chair and became very much a top advisor to the Duke of Bosny: cold and thoughtful, with an unreadable look in his eye. “The Stellar Group wants me to leave the Gallimaufries and travel out to Ceres. Very interesting. But pardon me, Ambassador, if I say I find that hard to believe. On the other hand, I can very easily believe that there are acquaintances of mine — I won’t go so far as to call them enemies — who for a variety of reasons might want me away from Earth for a while.”

MacDougal’s face reddened. “I know nothing of such things, or such people. I am telling you only that the members of the Stellar Group demand your presence. And they have hinted that this might have some bearing on the present quarantine of humanity.”

“Fine. So tell me this: Why do they want me, and only me? What do they want me for ?”

“Well …” Dougal MacDougal stood woodenly to attention.

Looking up at that tall figure, Kubo Flammarion felt his first moment of sympathy for the man. There was a good reason why the Ambassador had not taken Flammarion into his confidence concerning the reason for bringing Chan Dalton to Ceres.

The Ambassador didn’t know the reason, any more than Flammarion himself did. The need for Chan Dalton, and Chan Dalton alone, was apparently a mystery to every human.

With the Link return to Ceres closing in an hour, Kubo Flammarion had time for only a few private minutes with Chan Dalton before he had to guide Dougal MacDougal back to the surface.

“You could fight it, you know.” Kubo gestured around him. “I mean, with all this going for you and the Duke to help you, you could say no and I bet we’d never get you out of here. Why did you say yes?”

In the hours since they arrived at the Duke of Bosny’s court in the depths of the Gallimaufries — that’s what it felt like, a court, even if it wasn’t called that — Kubo had been mightily impressed. The way Dalton gave orders, casually; the way everyone nodded and scurried off to obey; the way they all cringed and kowtowed and groveled ; no one on Ceres, or anywhere away from Earth, had so much power and control.

The change, he suspected, was not in the inhabitants of the Gallimaufries. It was in Chan Dalton. Kubo remembered Chan as an innocent and compliant youth. Now he was a cool, calculating adult, whose battered face said he had seen everything and did only what he wanted to.

“I don’t know why you agreed,” Kubo went on, when Chan stared at him silently. “I mean, the aliens …”

“You don’t like them, do you?”

“Forget the `like’ bit. They give me the willies. Especially the Angels. I mean, they’re not just aliens. They’re not even animals . Why did you agree to meet with ’em?”

Dalton, Flammarion was pleased to see, did not go into the old “I do it for the good of humanity” speech. He had an odd little frown on his scarred face, of mixed puzzlement and annoyance.

“Fair question, Captain,” he said. “I don’t think I have a choice, but that’s not an acceptable answer. Or I could say it’s curiosity, and it’s certainly partly that. This will be the first Stellar Group Assembly with full human participation since the quarantine. It must mean the aliens want something from us. But what? Will they really end the quarantine if we help them? I’m as keen as the next person to find the answer. If I’m honest, though, there’s a bigger and a worse reason: vanity. The aliens don’t just want to meet with humans. They want to meet with me , Chan Dalton. I used to be nothing. How can a man resist that?”

Flammarion shivered. “I’ll tell you one man who’d have no trouble resisting. Those creepy Angels, and the Tinkers aren’t much better, crawling all over everything.” He turned his head. Dougal MacDougal was calling from outside the chamber. “Got to go.”

“Expect me tomorrow, Captain. I need tonight to wrap a few things up down here.”

“Good luck. I don’t expect I’ll see you again before the Assembly.”

When the Assembly convened in the Ceres Star Chamber, Kubo Flammarion wanted to be as far away as possible. A quick Link to the Dry Tortugas, maybe, out at the remote edge of the solar system and as distant from Sol as humans were allowed to go under the quarantine; that felt just about right.

So why, two days later, was he sitting here on Ceres, hidden away where he could see and hear whatever happened during the Stellar Group Assembly? Why had he cajoled and coaxed Milly, who handled the monitors that recorded for posterity every element of the meeting, into letting him sit next to her in the control booth?

Chan Dalton had put his finger on it: the same reason the monkey put his hand in the jar, the same reason the cat sniffed the high-voltage wire. It was curiosity, stupid curiosity. What did the aliens want? But now, with the Assembly just minutes away, Flammarion decided that he didn’t much care. He could feel his insides curdling within him — even though he was a hundred meters from the Star Chamber, even though the aliens themselves would be no more than three-dimensional images, linked in from their homeworlds lightyears away.

“Milly,” he whispered. “I don’t feel so good …”