I was ready for a shower then, and got the most thorough one of my life, three strong women scrubbing away where angels fear to tread.
When I was finally able to dress, they had some fancy and futuristic clothes waiting. Formfitting but also form-altering, with smart fabrics that applied light pressure here and there. Very flattering. Hundreds of tiny bright strings hung from the fabric, revealing and concealing. Men who never gave me a second look back then… well, they’d be too old to do anything but look now.
They gave me a bowl of vanilla ice cream and put me in a darkened room with a couch and suggested I might want to rest for an hour or so. I got a light turned on but couldn’t find anything to read. No flatscreen or cube obvious; no controls. But I said “space news” out loud and a cube appeared, no projection frame, with a picture of us landing, with this big crawler in the foreground.
Then it showed the president, beaming over his beard, congratulating us and saying that he would be out in California for the landing and the debriefing.
The station noted that live coverage would begin at 7:00, Eastern time. They might have a bigger story than they bargained for.
I did doze for a little while. It was after three when a big blond tech (whose name I didn’t know but who knew parts of me better than Paul did) woke me with the news that I’d been pronounced clean and was wanted at the Green Room.
She stopped me just before I got to the door. “Oh, you wouldn’t know this. The president’s from Kentucky, and he’ll offer you his favorite bourbon. It’s a hundred proof; you shouldn’t refuse, but you might not want too much of it.” Doubly true since all I’d had to eat on this planet was a bowl of ice cream. But hell… I could knock back a couple of shots and ask Professor Gold if he’d like to play some Texas Hold-’em.
A lot of famous people do seem larger than life when you meet them. I knew Gold had been a large man from his visit with Paul a half century ago. But now he was an old shaggy bear, moving with slow sureness, glowing with charisma, a man obviously happy with the world he’d helped to make. The world that had twenty- five minutes to go.
His hand was warm and dry, a measured fraction of large strength. “Paul tells me you don’t care for spirits,” he said. “So instead of a tot of Blanton’s, perhaps you’d like a glass of champagne? A big glass?”
An assistant came up with the biggest champagne flute I’d ever seen, and I took my place at a round table. There was only one other empty place—no space for Martians?—and Namir came in, accepted a glass of bourbon, and sat down. He spooned an ice cube from his water glass and put it in the whiskey.
“Should I address you as ‘General’?” the president said.
“We have no rank together, sir. Only Namir.”
He nodded and leaned back in a chair that was slightly larger than ours, slightly higher. “I exercised my right as Grand Inquisitor of this honky-tonk, and asked the scientists whether I might talk with you first. They acted like a bunch of folks who do have a sense of rank, Namir, not to mention tenure. So they agreed.”
I think our response was appropriate, for six people who were trying to behave like a proper audience while actually wanting to scream. Twenty minutes.
“What I’d like to do, before we go on camera and do all the cube-ops, is ask each of you, if it’s possible, to sum up your feelings in a line or two.” He smiled a wry curve. “Something I can misquote in an off-the-cuff speech. Namir, you’re oldest.”
“May we speak without fear of being exactly quoted? Let alone misquoted. No one will like what I have to say, and I would as soon have it not be ‘on the record.’ ”
“There are no recording instruments in this room. You have my word on that.”
Namir took a sip and his brow furrowed. “It’s not complicated. Never trust them, not one iota; not on the most trivial thing. But never forget that we have to live with them.” He set the glass down and smiled. “The lone Israeli speaks. I got that with my mother’s matzo.”
Meryl was next. “I think we should find a way to disconnect from them. Even if it means giving up free energy; even if it means giving up space. They’re too powerful and too unpredictable.”
Gold chuckled. “Watch out, Meryl. That attitude could get you elected in thirty states. Elza?”
“I think we’re in a position like a child with a toxic, abusive parent… who is also extremely rich. So our problem is twofold: Can we live without the wealth? And can we leave it somehow without the parent exacting revenge.”
“I disagree with you both,” Dustin said.
“Your turn.”
“We can’t maneuver our way out of this, Mr. President. They’re too powerful, and they’ve said outright that they’re testing us. We have to pass the tests. Channel all our energy right there. Maybe they’ll give us an A and leave us alone.”
“And if we fail the tests?”
The air shimmered and a holo of Snowbird appeared between the two men. “I have been listening; sorry for not appearing.
“If you fail the tests, then you cease to be. If you were Martians, then that would be of little consequence.”
“So if we were Martians,” Gold said, “the problem would disappear. Along with us.”
Her image pressed her head. “You are a humorist, Mr. Gold.”
“That’s a nonanswer,” Dustin said.
“Wait,” the president said, and touched his ear. “Oh my God.”
I looked at my wrist. It was 1600:22.
“Pipe it in here.” He shook his head angrily. “Jesus Christ! They don’t need clearance to see the fucking moon!”
An auditorium-sized cube suddenly filled a third of the room. It was London, the Thames at midnight, ancient Ferris wheel lighting up the darkness, the full moon’s reflection a rippling ladder up the river.
The moon suddenly changed. It became much brighter, and the markings on its face faded to an even glow. It grew to double its size, triple… and then it faded into a fuzzy round cloud, glowing dimmer as it grew.
“Was that the Others?” the president said, unnecessarily. “They actually blew up the moon?”
It could be a lot worse, I thought. Still could be.
“They sent a message. Just before it happened.” The weird night landscape faded, to be replaced by a huge face, all too familiar: Spy.
“You lied to us,” it said. “You sent emissaries, machine and man, to say that you were pacifistic. In return for our aggressiveness, you said, you sent a plea for peace and understanding.
“All the while, for fifty years, you were building a gigantic fleet of warships. Hidden from us.”
“Not for invasion!” the president cried, as if the image could hear. “Just to protect Earth!”
“Those thousand ships are about to be destroyed,” it said. “We are going to disassemble your Moon and use it for ammunition, from gravel-sized pebbles up to huge boulders.
“High-speed projectiles will target every warship, and all their support. Other rocks will destroy every smallest satellite structure. Your Space Elevators will have fallen by dawn.
“All of the space between the Earth and what is now the Moon’s orbit will be filled with gravel. Any spaceship you attempt to launch will be a sieve before it leaves cislunar space.
“We do this with a spirit of charity and generosity. You must realize that we could easily drop mountains on the Earth, and humans would go the way of the dinosaurs. But we do want to give you another chance and see what you do with it. This is your last test.
“I am speaking to you from the crater Clavius. In a few moments, it will cease to exist.”