Robert Sawyer - Calculating God

8:00.

8:01.

8:02.

I knew the VCR clock was right; we had a Sony unit that picked up a time signal over the cable. I reached over to the coffee table and adjusted the dodecahedron’s position slightly, as if that would make any difference.

8:03.

8:04.

“Well,” said Susan, generally to the room. “I should go make the salad.”

Ricky and I continued to wait.

At 8:10, Ricky said, “What a ripoff.”

“I’m sorry, sport,” I said. “I guess something came up.” I couldn’t believe that Hollus had let me down. A lot of things are forgivable; making a man look bad in the eyes of his son isn’t one of them.

“Can I go watch TV until it’s time for dinner?” Ricky asked.

We normally let Ricky watch only one hour of TV a night, and he’d already done that. But I couldn’t disappoint him again. “Sure,” I said.

Ricky got up. I let out a heavy sigh.

He’d said we were friends.

Ah, well. I stood up, picked up the projector, weighed it in my hand, then put it back in my briefcase, and —

A sound, from the back door. I closed my briefcase and headed off to investigate. Our back door opened onto a wooden deck that my brother-in-law Tad and I had built five summers ago. I opened the vertical blinds over the sliding glass door, and —

It was Hollus, standing on my deck.

I removed the security rod along the base of the glass door and slid the door open. “Hollus!” I said.

Susan had appeared behind me, wondering what I was up to. I turned to look at her; she’d seen Hollus and other Forhilnors often enough on TV, but her mouth was now agape.

“Come in,” I said. “Come in.”

Hollus managed to squeeze through the doorway, although it was a tight fit. He had changed for dinner; he was now wearing a wine-colored cloth, fastened with a polished slice out of a geode. “Why didn’t you appear inside?” I asked. “Why project yourself outside?”

Hollus’s eyestalks moved. There was something subtly different about the way he looked. Maybe it was just the lighting, from a halogen torchiere lamp; I was used to seeing him under the fluorescent panels we have at the museum.

“You invited me to your home,” he said.

“Yes, but—”

Suddenly, I felt his hand upon my arm. I’d touched him before, felt the static tingle of the force fields that composed his projection. This was different. His flesh was solid, warm.

“So I came,” he said. “But — I am sorry; I have been out there for a quarter of an hour, trying to figure out how to let you know that I had arrived. I had heard of doorbells, but could not find the button.”

“There isn’t one at the back door,” I said. My eyes were wide. “You’re here. In the flesh.”

“Yes.”

“But—” I peered behind him. There was something large in the backyard; I couldn’t quite make out its form in the gathering darkness.

“I have been studying your planet for a year,” Hollus said. “Surely you must have suspected we had ways to reach your planet’s surface without attracting undo attention.” He paused. “You invited me for dinner, did you not? I cannot enjoy your food via telepresence.”

I was amazed, thrilled. I turned to look at Susan, then realized I’d forgotten to introduce her. “Hollus, I’d like you to meet my wife, Susan Jericho.”

“Hell,” “oh,” said the Forhilnor.

Susan was quiet for a few seconds, stunned. Then she said, “Hello.”

“Thank you for allowing me to visit your home,” Hollus said.

Susan smiled, then looked rather pointedly at me. “If I’d had more advance notice, I could have cleaned the place up.”

“It is lovely as is,” said Hollus. His eyestalks swiveled, taking in the room. “Great care has obviously gone into the selection of each piece of furniture so that it complements the others.” Susan normally couldn’t stand spiders, but the big guy was clearly charming the pants off her.

In the bright light of the torchiere, I noticed tiny studs, like little diamonds, set into his bubble-wrap skin at each of the two joints in his limbs, and the three joints in his fingers. And a full row of them ran along each of his eyestalks. “Is that jewelry?” I said. “If I knew you were interested in such things, I’d have shown you the gem collections at the ROM. We’ve got some fabulous diamonds, rubies, and opals.”

“What?” said Hollus. And then, realizing, his eyestalks did their S-ripple again. “No, no, no. The crystals are the implants for the virtual-reality interface; they are what allow the telepresence simulacrum to mimic my moves.”

“Oh,” I said. I turned around and shouted out Ricky’s name. My son came bounding up the stairs from the basement. He started to head to the dining room, thinking I’d called him for dinner. But then he caught sight of me and Susan and Hollus. His eyes went wider than I’d ever seen them. He came over to me, and I put an arm around his shoulders.

“Hollus,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my son Rick.”

“Hell” “oh,” said Hollus.

I looked down at my boy. “Ricky, what do you say?”

Ricky’s eyes were still wide as he looked at the alien. “Cool!”

We hadn’t expected Hollus to show up for dinner in the flesh. Our dining-room table was a long rectangle, with a removable leaf in the middle. The table itself was dark wood, but it was covered with a white tablecloth. There really wasn’t much room for the Forhilnor. I had Susan help me move the sideboard out of the way to free up some space.

I realized I’d never seen Hollus sit down; his avatar obviously didn’t need to, but I thought the real Hollus might be more comfortable if he had some support. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?” I asked.

Hollus looked around. He spotted the ottoman in the living room, positioned in front of the love seat. “Could I use that?” he said. “The little stool?”

“Sure.”

Hollus moved into the living room. With a six-year-old boy around, we didn’t have any breakables out, which was a good thing. Hollus bumped the coffee table and the couch on his way; our furniture wasn’t spread out enough for a being of his proportions. He brought back the ottoman, placed it by the table, then stepped over it, so that his round torso was directly above the circular stool. He then lowered his torso down onto it. “There,” he said, sounding content.

Susan looked quite uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Hollus. I didn’t think you were actually, really coming. I have no idea whether what I made is something you can eat.”

“What did you make?”

“A salad — lettuce, cherry tomatoes, diced celery, bits of carrot, croutons, and an oil-and-vinegar dressing.”

“I can eat that.”

“And lamb chops.”

“They are cooked?”

Susan smiled. “Yes.”

“I can eat that, too, if you can provide me with about a liter of room-temperature water to go with it.”

“Certainly,” she said.

“I’ll get it,” I said. I went to the kitchen and filled a pitcher with tap water.

“I’ve also made milk shakes for Tom and Ricky.”

“This is the bovine mammary secretion?” asked Hollus.

“Yes.”

“If it is not rude to do so, I will not partake.”

I smiled, and Ricky, Susan, and I took our places at the table. Susan brought the salad bowl out and passed it to me. I used the serving forks to move some to my plate, then loaded some onto Ricky’s. I then put some on Hollus’s plate.

“I have brought my own utensils,” he said. “I hope that is not rude.”

“Not at all,” I said. Even after my trips to China, I was still one of those who always had to ask for a knife and fork in a Chinese restaurant. Hollus pulled two devices that looked a bit like corkscrews from the folds of the cloth wrapped around his torso.