David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

I thought about Marcie and my promise to call her. I wouldn't even be able to do that.

I thought about Wallachstein and his barely veiled threats. Had I failed the psychiatric examination?

What if they did decide to make me disappear? Wasn't I entitled to a fair trial--or had I already had it? How would they do it? Would I get any warning? How did they make people disappear anyway?

I realized I was sweating. I couldn't sit still. I got up and searched the room again, the balcony, the door-

The door beeped.

I started to call, "Who is it?" and then stopped. What if it were a firing squad? Would they do it here in the room? Or would they take me somewhere else to do it?

I stood there, debating whether to holler for help or try to hide. Before I could make up my mind, the door slid open. "May I come in?"

"Huh? Who-?" And then I placed him. Fromkin. The man who ate strawberries and lox while talking about global starvation. The pompous asshole.

"I said, `May I come in?' I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Uh, no-I-uh, how did you open the door?"

He held up a card with a gold stripe on it for me to see. "Oh," I said.

I made room, he stepped inside and the door slid closed. I looked at it, wanting to see if it would open for me now, but I resisted. I followed him into the room and we sat down. He sank into his chair with easy grace. How old was he, I wondered?

He studied me for a moment with sharp dark eyes, then he said, "I'm here because a mutual friend of ours suggested that I talk to you. Do you understand?"

"No names, huh?"

"That's right." He repeated, "Do you understand?" Wallachstein had asked the same question several times. A phrase floated into my mind: the comprehension of the defendant. It was an important legal consideration. There had been a Supreme Court decision about it once. I wondered, was this part of my trial too?

"Is this official?" I asked.

He looked annoyed. "Unless you answer my question, I have to leave. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said quickly. "I do. I understand. Now answer my question. Is this an official visit, or what?"

"If you want to look at it that way, yes. Our mutual friend thought we ought to have a little chat. It's to your benefit."

"Is it? Really?"

Fromkin looked annoyed, but otherwise he ignored the question. He said, "In case you're wondering, yes, I did see your performance this morning-and yes, I also remember you from last night. For someone who only got in town yesterday, you've certainly let people know you're here." I must have looked embarrassed, for he added, "To be fair, it's not all your doing. This city is just another small town these days. The number-two indoor sport is gossiping about the number-one indoor sport-and who's playing which position. You and your boyfriend just got caught in the middle, that's all."

"We're not boyfriends. The middle of what?"

Fromkin scratched his head. "Uh, let me explain it this way. There's a certain group of people; rumor has it that they're very important. Although nobody knows who's in the group, or even who does what, or even what the group is supposed to be doing, everybody suspects that anybody who knows anything must be in that group. It just so happens that some of those suspicions are very accurate. So when one of those supposed-to-be-important individuals is suddenly called away from her-ah, personal affairs-to bring in a Very Important Delivery, well, then, naturally there's going to be a great deal of interest in that delivery."

It took me a moment to translate that, and then it took another moment for it to sink in. Right. It was worse than I thought. I said, "Ted and I are not boyfriends. Or any other kind of friends. And I don't know how important our delivery was or wasn't-we were told it wasn't."

"I don't know about that." Fromkin spread his hands wide in a gesture of innocence. "That's not what I want to talk about anyway. Do you mind if I record this?" He held up his unit. I shook my head and he switched it on. "Did you see any of the playbacks of the conference sessions?"

"Only a little. I heard some of it while I was driving back here this evening."

"What did you hear?"

"A lot of uproar. About how to deal with the worms. Apparently there's a faction that wants to try to establish peaceful contact."

"Do you believe that's possible?"

"No."

"Why not?"

I blinked. "Uh, you don't know much about the Chtorrans, do you?"

"That's not germane. I'm asking your opinion."

"I never saw a Chtorran who wanted to stop and chat first. We never had any choice but to kill them."

"How many Chtorrans have you seen?"

"Live or pictures?"

"Total."

"Um, well-I've seen the Show Low photographs-"

Fromkin nodded knowingly. "Go on."

"-and I've seen the nest I mentioned this morning. The one with the fourth Chtorran. The one I burned."

He waited expectantly. "Is that all?"

"Um-no, there was one more. The one here at the Science Center."

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me about that," he said slowly.

I shook my head. "It was just ... there."

He looked into my eyes and said, "I know about those sessions, son. Is that what you saw, one of them?"

I nodded. "There were some dogs. They fed them to the Chtorran. Live. Do you know about that?"

Fromkin said, "They say that Chtorrans won't eat dead meat -they have to eat their prey live."

"That's true. At least, as far as I know it is."

"Mm hm. And those are all the Chtorrans you've seen?"

"Yes."

"Are you an expert on Chtorrans?"

"No, of course not. But I've had more experience than most other people have had-at least those who've lived to tell about it. Some of those assholes this afternoon were talking about making friends with Chtorrans. And that's no more possible than a steak making friends with a dog-except from the inside."

"Couldn't it be that your experience with Chtorrans is limited, and that's colored your perceptions of them...?"

"You mean, maybe there are peaceful ones, but I don't know about it?"

He nodded.

I weighed the possibility. "Well, yeah-maybe there are peaceful ones. I've never heard of any. And I don't think anybody else has either-or else we'd have heard about it by now. Somebody would have said something this afternoon. Somebody would know about it, wouldn't they?"

Fromkin didn't answer.

"What's this all about, anyway?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Just for information. Raw material. You know. The truth can only be seen when looked at from many points of view at once."

I shook my head. "You're not asking for information. You're digging for something specific."

"You're too suspicious. I'm a civilian, son. Can we go on?"

"There's more?"

"Just a little. This afternoon, you stood up in front of a crowd of people and said you had to burn a man because he was being attacked by a worm."

"Yes, I did." Part of me was insisting that I put up a defensive barrier against this man's probing, but another part was insisting on telling the truth, no matter who heard it. The only way we would defeat the Chtorrans would be by telling the truth.

I added, "It was the kindest thing I could do."

"Kindest-?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "How do you know that?"

"I beg your pardon?"

His expression had turned hard. "Have you ever been on the receiving end of a flamethrower?"

"No, I haven't."

"Then where do you get your information?"

"That's what I was told by Shorty."

"Who's Shorty?"

"The man I had to burn. Sir." I said that last deliberately. Fromkin was silent for a moment at that, turning the information over to see if it was mined.

Finally he said, "I'm told-by someone who knows-that death by fire has to be the most horrible thing imaginable. When you're hit by napalm, you can feel your flesh turning into flame."