"I think I misjudged you." Ryan Bauer, a water tumbler full of ice and amber liquid in his hand, flung himself into the captain's chair across from Kyle. "In a fingernails-across-the-blackboard sort of way, you're all right."
The borrowed private jet, most specifically not designated Air Force One, was plushly carpeted and richly appointed. There were no flight attendants aboard, in the interests of the trip's secrecy, but the Cessna's pantry came stocked for major partying. With the summit over, and serious attack-planning impossible until they got home, the passengers were taking advantage. "You'll turn my head, General. Or is it the bourbon speaking?"
"Scotch." Ice cubes tinkled as Bauer downed a healthy swig. "But in a good cause."
"Okay." Kyle had no idea where this was going.
"You're all right," the flyer repeated. "You have a good head on your shoulders and an insane willingness to speak your mind."
"So what good cause does the Scotch support?"
"My willingness to step onto a plane." Laughing, he nabbed a jumbo shrimp from Kyle's plate. "Not what you expected, was it."
"Most pilots actually like airplanes."
"It's not that." Bauer leaned forward conspiratorially. "You understand these things. I'll gladly fly after the Tea Party."
Tea Party was the code name for the as-yet unscheduled assault on the starship. What Kyle failed to grasp was what he supposedly understood. "Excuse me?"
"Beam weapons." Bauer expropriated another shrimp. "The lasers on the moon use visible-light frequencies, so that we can see the hologram. They took out the Atlantis and that Proton with microwave frequencies. The early-warning birds are being fried with X-rays. Why X-rays, do you suppose?"
"Because the atmosphere blocks X-rays. If the aliens had used microwaves, like they did with the Atlantis, we and the Russians would have had a better chance to see what was really going on, instead of automatically blaming each other for the saticide. Some of those downward-stabbing microwaves could have been detected on the ground. We don't have beam weapons in space, and neither do the Russians . . . as far as we know, anyway."
"Saticide. I like that. Hafta suggest it to someone at the Pentagon." Bauer admired the spectacular alpine scenery rushing by far below. "Swelk's ugly friends have lasers that are far too tunable for my liking. Now, whenever I'm flying, I feel like a sitting duck."
Tunable lasers. Microwave beams tuned to an excitation energy for liquid hydrogen had exploded the fuel tank of the Atlantis. X-rays from the same alien satellites continued to destroy Earth's satellites. The leisurely pace at which Earth's satellites were targeted had been a mystery. Since Swelk's defection, Kyle had come to believe it was plot-related. Film plot, that was. Rualf, no friend of Swelk's, presumably wanted his bugs to capture plenty of suspenseful scenes in the build-up to Armageddon.
"Kyle, buddy. Are you with me?"
Tunable lasers. How separated were the excitation frequencies of liquid hydrogen and jet fuel? They were surely much closer together than microwaves and X-rays. "Sadly, Ryan, I am with you . . . but maybe you're not worried enough. Why limit your misgivings to attacks on the jet fuel in planes? What about petroleum pipelines? Natural-gas storage tanks? Hell, what about ordinary everyday gasoline?"
"Yeah, you're all right." Bauer downed another healthy swig of scotch. "Planning for Tea Party just got a whole bunch more complicated."
"How so?"
"Because," said Bauer, "you may be right. We and the Russians had better plan to attack all the alien satellites at the same time commandos storm the ship on the ground."
The F'thk ambassador trotted briskly up the ramp into the gaping airlock. As was his custom, H'ffl was the last of the delegation to come aboard. He stood in the airlock, gazing serenely over six hundred thousand smiling Pakistanis, until the outer door thumped shut.
Ridiculous two-sided creatures.
"Helmet, clear. Unit, off." The effect of Rualf's first command was to give him a view of the cargo bay. The robot through whose cameras he had been seeing remained in the airlock. His second command put the robot itself into its idle mode. Stiff from spending much of an Earth day inside the teleoperations gear, he cautiously disengaged his limbs from its delicate controls. With a squeal of delight, he freed his sensor stalks from the restrictive helmet. All around him, members of the troupe were extracting themselves from their own equipment. They all moved like Rualf felt: clumsy and stiff from long confinement.
It was night shift by ship's time, and he strode grandly through the mostly empty corridors to the officers' mess. Control of a F'thk required precise motions of the digits; flexing and stretching and moving boldly felt wonderful.
His mood was far from the euphoria the strutting suggested. The humans, in a display of sly animal cunning, continued in their stubborn refusal to destroy themselves. The Pakistani junta, the true subjects of this visit, were not progressing toward an attack on India with nearly the speed Rualf would have liked. At least the generals had rounded up a good crowd of extras.
How long until the captain's still good-natured rumblings of impatience turned serious? How long until the captain insisted on a return to civilization? Or could Grelben, his ship heavily mortgaged even before the interstellar detour, afford to go home without his cut of this film?
"No rest for the wicked," he announced to no one in particular. It was an Earth expression learned from one of the first freaks they had abducted The expression amused Rualf greatly. The freak, of course, was long beyond amusement. He changed direction on impulse, deferring his snack to go instead to the bridge.
"How was . . . Islamabad?" asked Grelben. The question was a courtesy; his attention was mostly on a maintenance console.
"Fine, Captain. Very interesting." Rualf reared onto twos to thoughtfully flex the digits of his third extremity. "Could I have a word with you in private?"
"Take over," Grelben told a junior officer. "I want a report by shift's end on the status of the environmental system. To Rualf he added, "Come to my cabin."
They walked in silence to the captain's quarters. Inside, Rualf admired the hologram of a Salt Sea shorescape. "Beautiful scenery. I understand why you want to acquire property there."
"Which implies completion of our little project here. I hope what you want to discuss is the imminent completion of our undertaking."
Rualf tipped toward the captain in an insincere show of respect. "I've been thinking about that happy day. With their many shortcomings, the humans could fail to do a proper job of self-destruction. I can envision a situation where we have all the recordings needed for a three-square of movies—but a few survivors still retain some technology."
Grelben trained two sensor stalks on him. Inside the small cabin, such direct scrutiny was a frank, almost rude, stare. "Are you saying your plan is not working?"
"Of course not." If it were true, he would not say that. "We set out to capture scenes that we could not invent, and we have those. I could make terrific films now."
The staring eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I remember bold promises of nuclear destruction. Special effects that you have yet to produce."
"I will." Rualf was confident the F'thk could goad some humans into a nuclear exchange, which would suffice for the movie. That said, only the Russians and Americans had the capacity to do truly global damage. For reasons that remained unclear, and despite his best efforts, the Russian freaks and the American freaks kept recoiling from full-scale warfare.
The worry gnawing at Rualf's gut was devastatingly simple. What if Swelk had been correct about the humans' potential?
The Consensus could not leave behind an unobliterated Earth. Krulirim were long-lived, especially those who, like his troupe, did much relativistic traveling. Until the destruction of the space shuttle and the subsequent abandonment of their space station, the Earthlings had been, if just barely, spacefaring. How long, if they did not destroy themselves, before they became starfaring?
His kind had freely pillaged the worlds of the primitive species they came across—but the savages were never overtly harmed. An encounter between humans and another Krulchukor ship or a Krul-settled world could be disastrous.
There had to be a plan to destroy Earth if the freaks refused to follow his script.
"So why did you want to see me?" Grelben had stopped staring, if only long enough to pour himself a drink.
"It occurred to me we have an option. We are closest to success with countries having smaller stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Hostilities between two such countries will give us almost everything we could hope for. We may want to consider leaving once that kind of war happens. It could get us home sooner." Time to see what the captain was made of. "But it would require us to do a little cleanup."
Grelben stoppered his flask. His penetrating gaze returned to Rualf. "Some fumigation?"
Great minds, it appeared, thought alike. "That's right."
"I like to clean up after myself." The captain waggled his sensor stalks in amused satisfaction. "I happen to have given some thought to how it could be accomplished."
The strip-mall restaurant boasted, using the verb loosely, an eclectic mix of Chinese wall hangings, a bar filled with brass fixtures and potted ferns, and art-deco furniture. It was shortly after six o'clock on a Saturday evening, and not quite half the tables were occupied. The Hunan Tiger evidently wasn't the first eatery to occupy this location. It was unlikely to be the last.
Amid the ebb and flow of diners' conversations, Kyle had an epiphany: I need to get out more. Two men in a nearby booth looked away in embarrassment as he caught them eyeing him. He shrugged and smiled—his fifteen minutes of fame again. Or they were staring at Darlene, which would have combined bad manners with good taste.
"We won't be talking much shop tonight." Darlene had been scarfing down rice noodles; she pushed away the half-empty bowl. "What were you thinking, suggesting this place?"
"That it would be nice not to talk shop for a change." And that this was the calm before the storm. He refilled their tea cups, awaiting her response.
A brief smile chased away an even shorter flash of surprise. "Yes, I'd like that."
"So what's your story?"
"More a vignette than a story. I'm from Iowa. Mom taught French in high school; Dad, German." She quit talking as the waiter delivered their egg rolls, and didn't resume when he left.
Ah, a fellow Midwesterner and an only-in-the-workplace extrovert. No wonder he could relate. "Therefore you became a diplomat to prevent another European war?"
She had a nice laugh. "I'm told the French were the aggressors in this case."
"Go on."
"In my own understated way, I rebelled—I studied Spanish. That led me to Latin American history. I don't have the patience to teach, so here I am."
He spooned duck sauce onto his egg roll. "If you don't have patience, why doesn't working in government make you crazy?" He canted his head thoughtfully. "Or has it?"
She'd just begun a snappy comeback when his cell phone chimed. Very few people knew this number. "Hold that retort."
If the summons wasn't unexpected, its timing was. He waved over their sullen waiter. "Please cancel the rest of our order." To Darlene, he explained as much as he could in public. "We have to get back to town."
"We're not ready." Ryan Bauer's tone carried conviction. "Most of North America is covered, in theory. The Russians tell me the same about central and eastern Europe. Hawaii and most of Russia east of the Urals are still hanging out there. And last I heard, a few people live in Africa, Latin America, most of the European Union, China, India."
The crisis team had reconvened at Britt's urgent summons. Wind rattled the cabin windows; the sky was forebodingly gray. Today's agenda had only one topic: how soon could the Consensus be assaulted? Britt didn't like the answer he was getting. Or rather the nonanswer. "Ryan, that's irrelevant. I asked about the starship."
"Britt, you've seen Kyle's study. Their weapons satellites can kill an airliner within a minute. We know they routinely scan our cities with low-power beams. That's how they do a readout of the infernal orbs. A frequency tweak and a squooch more power, and the same scans will explode cars instead. What would that do to, say, London or Rio or Tokyo?" Ryan thumped the table. "Our strategic defense labs are all in-country, not surprisingly. Same with the Russians. Those labs are where the experimental beam weapons are. To have a prayer of protecting anyone else, we need to deploy, and in secret, to other spots around the world."
A Franklin Ridge study sat in front of Kyle. His lab had done its usual beyond-thorough job. Bauer, if anything, was downplaying the potential disaster. Urban sprawl routinely engulfed once-isolated refineries and natural gas tanks. And natural gas had become the fuel of choice for small, city-sited electric power plants. These new plants were everywhere, run by factories and electric utilities alike. Estimated casualties of a microwave strike from enemy satellites: tens of thousands per city, almost instantaneously.
"I said, how soon, General?" Britt's voice was icy.
"Britt. Since we've started down the path of reviewing our vulnerabilities to the satellites, it'd help me, at least, to finish that." Darlene had read the study, too. Erin Fitzhugh nodded her concurrence.
"Five minutes," begrudged Britt, bending only slightly to the unusual display of unanimity. Bad news as yet unshared peeked out from his eyes. "Then I expect a number, Ryan. And it better be measured in days."
"Five minutes," Bauer agreed. "Very discreetly, I've had the best analysts at BMDO"—the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization—"look into this. Keeping the enemy satellites from doing who knows what means engaging them the moment we reveal ourselves."
"Engage them how?"
"Any way we can, Britt. We have experimental ground-based ABM and ASAT, antiballistic missile and antisatellite, laser weapons. So do the Russians. Those can engage enemy satellites that are reasonably close to overhead. We have some mothballed air-launched ASAT missiles, launched from F-15s. Those can be deployed overseas, but that will take a little time. The Russians have tested a space-mine system. That basically put bombs into orbit, bombs that are exploded when their orbits approach a target. And we can improvise weapons, fitting ballistic missiles with infrared sensors. The ET targets are stealthed, but they can't help radiating excess heat that we can see."
A thunderclap shook the cabin. Seconds later, a sloppy mix of rain and sleet began pelting the roof and walls. Britt stared downhill at the wind-whipped bay. "I remember Sergei's glider analogy. Can ASAT missiles accomplish anything, or are they more for our consciences? I won't delay for symbolism."
"Oh, we'll accomplish something. I guarantee it." Bauer shook his head sadly. "We'll draw their fire. If we're really lucky, the commandos will penetrate the starship and get the aliens to call off the satellites, before they've done real damage to civilian targets."
Megadeaths were riding on one roll of the dice. Kyle took a deep breath. "Britt, the Russians agree with the plan of deploying rudimentary civil defense before the raid. You know that. What's going on?"
"You have to specify your Russians. President Chernykov, yes. Your friend Sergei, yes. The ultranationalists, no." Britt turned away from the window and the storm. "The Russian ambassador brought a dispatch to the White House this morning. It's about yesterday's gangland shoot-out in Moscow."
The story had merited two paragraphs in the morning's Washington Post: cops and robbers and a warehouse fire. "I don't get it," Kyle said.
When had Britt ceased looking distinguished and begun looking old? "It had nothing to do with the Russian Mafia. The nationalists learned Chernykov's government leaked the site of the Iranian nuclear-weapons depot. They were furious at the betrayal of a long-time Russian ally.
"Bottom line, there was a coup in the works. The fire was to cover up the real story—a botched raid by the Interior Ministry police. Chernykov thinks he can suppress the story for maybe a week. He hasn't trusted the nationalists' judgment enough to bring them in on the real aliens situation." He raised an interrogatory eyebrow at Erin Fitzhugh.
"The Agency doesn't trust them either," she answered. Britt's news was apparently not a surprise to her. "Russia's sacred destiny, restore the glorious empire of the golden communist era, yada yada yada. I wouldn't trust the nationalists with Swiss Army knives, let alone nukes. Problem is, the military and internal-security forces are riddled with sympathizers."
"Thanks, Erin," said Britt. "Dmitri was advising the president, in an act of incredible statesmanship, that he may not be able to retain power much longer, at least not without entrusting the nationalists with the truth about the aliens. Possibly as little as two weeks.
"The Consensus is scheduled to visit Washington in six days. That's how long, General, you have to get prepared."
Kabuki theater, ballet, and medieval passion plays.
Darlene sank with a sigh of quiet contentment into her favorite chair. A cup of tea sat beside her on the end table. She hadn't been in her own house much these past few months. Only rotten weather and the twilight finish of today's crisis meeting on the Bay had brought her home tonight, instead of driving another two hours to the safehouse.
Indian Devadasi temple dancers and Chinese shadow-puppet theater.
Diplomats spent hours politely observing the traditional dramatic arts of other countries. At the start of her career, that had included countless—and endless—zarzuelas, the Spanish variation on opera. Sadly, understanding the dialogue and lyrics made opera even more artificial.
Aboriginal storytellers banging clapsticks and drums.
At the zap of a remote, the gas log in the fireplace lit with a whoosh. The flames appeared twice—directly, behind the fireplace's tempered glass doors, and again reflected from her big-screen TV. The television was off . . . she'd had it up to here with visual entertainment.
Her long-last-at-home serenity was evaporating. Guess who wasn't in the defense/spy circle? Guess who wasn't Britt's protégée? Now take a wild guess who was tasked to watch movies?
Despite years of on-the-job desensitization and her initial enthusiasm, the Krulchukor films were grinding her down. Earth's covert resistance had so few members—how had she wound up in such a meaningless and unproductive role? This was like too many overseas assignments, when she'd been the sacrificial diplomat nodding through some lavish cultural extravaganza the ambassador had refused to attend.
She tucked herself into an afghan. How many movies had she watched so far with Swelk? Six, she thought, but they all blurred together. Swelk had started her with The Reluctant Neighbor. Pausing the holographic film every few minutes to ask questions, re- and rere-watching scenes to catch stuff she realized she'd missed, training herself to recognize alien cinematic conventions . . . that first movie had stretched itself out over twelve hours. Kyle had asked her to describe it, and the best she could come up with was "Victorian comedy of manners meets film noir." Then came Circle of Friends, ten and a half hours, and Strength in Numbers, ten. The movies weren't getting shorter, but she was acquiring some facility at reading a Krul's body language. The new skill reinforced a conviction that Swelk was telling them the truth.
So? If she accepted the concept of a world-threatening hostile theater company, it wasn't much of a stretch to believe that the one Krul she had met could act.
Darlene eyed the heap of mail a neighbor had been regularly bringing inside. She couldn't bring herself to look at it. What came next? Oh, yes. Revenge of the Subconscious. She'd had high hopes for that; it contained, Swelk had advised, the dream sequence based on extinct Krulchukor monsters. Even a human could see the resemblance to the once enigmatic F'thk. Darlene had once more found herself believing the little ET.
And again that movie was a predictable morality play. Conformity is good; individuality is an aberration. Fit in, get along, understand the other Krul. Empathy, empathy, empathy.
Darlene found herself on her feet, hunting for a snack. Her milk was two weeks past its expiration and lumpy; she returned the cereal to the pantry and heated canned soup. The movies were rich with nuanced relationships and subtle societal cues, replete with hints of cultural structure she was only beginning to notice. They were invaluable as social commentary, but it was so hard, when viewing them so intensively, to get past the boringly consistent moral.
Going Home had made Swelk cry—at least weeping was how Darlene understood the collapse of Swelk's sensor stalks into overcooked-pasta flacidity. The title alone, given Swelk's situation, was enough to make Darlene's eyes mist. The ET had no expectations of ever seeing home again. Dammit, she liked Swelk, but her job did not allow her to trust the alien.
Darlene returned to the den and its cheerful fire. She couldn't even remember the name of one movie. She had to tell herself she did good for the cause at the team meetings—she couldn't see what she accomplished as a film critic. Or did she even delude herself that she contributed in the group? She hadn't been brought to the big meeting with the Russians.
Flickering flames, familiar surroundings, comfort food . . . she plopped back into her arm chair. Cultural force-feeding notwithstanding, she really did know her immersion in Krulchukor social structures and conventions was invaluable. It had to be, didn't it?
Think, woman.
She found a memory instead of a thought: Kyle dismissing her plot summaries as "Chick flicks on steroids." Real helpful.
Or was it?
"It's only a movie." Those were among Swelk's first words to Kyle. Only a Krulchukor movie. A movie directed by Rualf, as were, supposedly, all the films Darlene had been lamenting. What sense did the coming apocalypse make as a Rualf film?
More, even, than Revenge of the Subconscious, the film in which humanity was unwillingly starring would have spectacular visual effects. Wide distribution of Galactic orbs finally made sense—no self-respecting Krulchukor movie could get by on explosions. It needed pathos. Heads of state and their orbs would be vaporized when the missiles hit . . . but the troupe could continue scanning orbs in the countryside. Plenty of poignancy and social interest as chaos and fallout spread.
It was a stunning insight. Shivering, Darlene reclaimed the afghan earlier cast aside. She knew there was something else here, some other implication waiting to be recognized.
When it finally came to her, she actually clapped her hands in glee.
Britt was the product of old money and a multigenerational tradition of public service. His mother was a past national-society president of the DAR. A deep social chasm separated the landmark Arledge mansion from Darlene's humble home.
When enlightenment struck, well past midnight, she didn't hesitate to drive over. Time truly was of the essence.
"It's all right, Bill," Britt told the Secret Service agent who answered her knock. Instead of the silk pajamas and velvet smoking jacket she'd envisioned, her host wore a plaid flannel shirt over cargo pants. She must have looked surprised. "And I put them on one leg at a time."
He led her into a sitting room, then cut short her nervous visual search. "No orbs in the house. No gadgets in this room that could possibly be tapped. Daily bug searches. What can I get you to drink?"
"Nothing, thanks." Darlene was glad he had a fire going. His burnt real logs. She stood by the hearth, arms outstretched to warm her hands. "You know that tea party we're planning for a few days from now?
"I think I know an easier way for the partygoers to get in."