Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

Silence rolled out of the trees and off the river.

A gust blew across the glade in which he hid. “Who is Floyd?”

“A friend.”

“A friend who plays tricks?”

“I don’t know. Where are you, Floyd?”

“No one is here but you and I.”

“Who are you? Really?”

“A visitor.”

“A tourist?”

“You could put it that way. Listen, Arnold, why don’t you sit down? You don’t look at all comfortable.”

“Why don’t you come out where I can see you? What are you afraid of? How do you do the voice trick?”

“I am in your field of vision.”

“Where? Are you behind a tree?”

That soft laughter again, rippling through the elms and boxwoods. “I am at your side, Arnold.” A sudden current of warm air flowed around him. “I am pleased to have an opportunity to talk with you.”

Arnold was still watching the woods. “What is it? Speakers hidden around here somewhere?”

“You’re hard to convince.”

“Convince about what?”

“Okay. If you want, I’ll do a demonstration. Pick a tree.”

“What?”

“Pick a tree. Any tree.” It sounded impatient.

“Okay.” He pointed toward an American elm. “That one.”

It was the biggest tree in the area, about sixty feet high. Its trunk was maybe twenty-five feet in circumference, covered with thick gray-brown bark. About a third of the way up, it divided into stout branches, and they divided again and eventually joined the leafy web that connected it with its neighbors. A squirrel clung to the furrowed trunk, its dark eyes locked on him.

“Watch now.”

“I’m watching.”

Overhead, the wind stirred. The upper branches creaked, moved, began to sway. They rolled in a single, synchronized dance, as they might during a gale. But the air where Arnold stood was almost still.

Leaves fell. And twigs. They drifted down through the graying light.

Arnold’s mouth went dry. “What are you?” he asked slowly. “What do you want?”

“I’m a sightseer. A traveler.”

“Why can’t I see you, Traveler? Are you invisible?”

“Not really. Is the wind invisible?”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course it is.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t really understand what’s going on.” Cautiously: “You’re not a ghost, are you?”

“No. There are some advanced species in which the essence survives the husk. But we are not among them.”

Arnold frowned, and thought over the implications. “Am I?” he asked.

“Oh, no. Of course not. At least, I don’t think so. No. Not a chance.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Most recently, I’ve been exploring the prairies.”

“No. I mean, where did you come from originally? Where were you born?”

“I was not born, in your sense of the word.” The wood fell silent. Arnold listened to far-off noises, airhorns, a dog, an airplane. “I suppose it will do no harm to answer your question. I saw my first sunrise on an artificial world quite far away. My sun is not visible from here. At least, it is not visible to me. And I doubt that it is to you.”

Arnold’s strength drained. Perhaps until this moment, he had expected things would sort themselves out in some sort of rational way. But now he knew he had come face to face, so to speak, with the twilight zone. “Are you an alien?” he asked.

“That’s a matter of perspective. But if we’re going to indulge in name-calling and categorizing, you might keep your own simian characteristics in mind.”

“No, listen. I’m serious. And you’re not hostile, right?”

A sudden breeze swirled around his ankles. “Arnold, intelligent life forms are, by definition, rational. Reasonable.”

“Marvelous.” He was up on his feet again. “Listen, Traveler, I’m happy to meet you. My name’s Arnold—” He stopped. “You knew my name before you ever spoke to me.”

“Yes.”

“How is that? What’s going on? You’re not the vanguard of an invasion, are you?”

“We’re not much interested in invading, Arnold. That’s more in your tradition.”

“How does it happen you knew my name?”

“I know a few people in Fort Moxie. I don’t spend all my time up here in the wind screen, you know.”

“Who else have you spoken to?”

“No one.”

“Nobody else knows you’re here?” Arnold was having visions of his picture on the cover of Time.

“No.”

“Why did you speak to me?”

Again, Arnold felt the movement of air currents. “Because I wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Just talk.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why me? Why not Alex Wickham? Or Tom Lasker? Why talk to me?” Arnold wasn’t sure why he pursued the point. Maybe there was something that this supernatural creature could see in him that the townspeople couldn’t. If he possessed a special quality, he should know about it.

“You’re almost the only one who comes out here. Mrs. Henney jogs in the morning, but she’s a trifle nervous, and if I revealed myself to her, I suspect she’d have a cardiac arrest.”

“But you said you travel through town, too.”

“I do. But I can’t communicate with anyone there. Not enough trees. And no water.”

“What do you mean?”

“I do not have a tongue, Arnold. As you can perceive. I speak by manipulating other substances. I’m quite good at it, actually.”

The Traveler sounded proud of itself. If any sense of disquiet still lingered in Arnold’s soul, it was dispelled at that moment. “Listen, how would you feel about talking to a reporter?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not? This is a world-shaking event. First contact with another intelligent being.”

“I won’t ask who else is presumed in that equation to be intelligent. But no, thank you. I only wanted to talk with you. Not with the world.”

“But nobody will believe this if I don’t get a witness out here. How about Floyd Rickett, then? Would you talk to him?”

It laughed. A cascade of leaves and twigs exploded among the upper branches of a box elder. “I wonder if I made a bad choice.”

“Okay. Okay, listen, don’t get mad. All right? What did you want to talk about?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“You don’t have a message? A warning? Something you want me to pass on?”

“You have a strong sense of the melodramatic. No: I just saw you coming here every day, and I thought it would be nice to say hello.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. This is the first contact between two intelligent species, and all we get to say is hello?”

“Arnold: this is certainly not the first contact. The rules get broken all the time. And anyway, what more significant greeting is there?”

“You mean there’ve been others before this?”

“Of course. Not with me, understand. But, statistically, we’re both insignificant. What are the odds that either of us would hold the first conversation with someone from another world?”

“Then why haven’t I heard about it? Why hasn’t it been on TV?”

“Because we’re not supposed to do it. Nobody is going to pose for cameras. Listen, I’ve got to be going.”

“You mean this is all there is to it?”

“I’m afraid so, Arnold. It’s been nice to talk with you.”