“The civilians are locked up for other reasons,” Arthur said. “We haven’t found any evidence of biological contamination, but we can’t afford to take chances.”
“The Guest appears to be free of biologicals, true?” Rotterjack asked.
“So far,” General Fulton said. “We’re still testing.”
“In short, it’s not happening the way we thought it might,” Crockerman said. “No distant messages in Puerto Rico, no hovering flying saucers, no cannon shells falling in the boondocks and octopuses crawling out.”
Arthur shook his head, smiling. Crockerman had a way of coercing respect and affection from those around him. The President cocked one thick dark eyebrow at Harry, then Arthur, then briefly at McClennan. “But it is happening.”
“Yessir,” Fulton said.
“Mrs. Crockerman told me this would be the most important meeting of my life. I know she’s right. But I am scared, gentlemen. I’ll need your help to get me through this. To get us through this. We are going to get through this, aren’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Rotterjack said grimly.
Nobody else answered.
“I’m ready, General.” The President sat straight-backed in the chair and faced the dark window. Fulton nodded at the duty officer.
The curtain opened.
The Guest stood beside the table, apparently in the same position as when Arthur and Harry had left it the day before.
“Hello,” Crockerman said, his face ashen in the subdued room light. The Guest, with its light-sensitive vision, could see them perhaps more clearly than they saw it.
“Hello,” it replied.
“My name is William Crockerman. I’m President of the United States of America, the nation you’ve landed in. Do you have nations where you live?”
The Guest did not answer. Crockerman looked aside at Arthur. “Can he hear me?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Arthur said.
“Do you have nations where you live?” Crockerman repeated.
“You must ask important questions. I am dying.”
The President flinched back. Fulton moved forward as if he were about to take charge, clear the room, and protect the Guest from any further strain, but Rotterjack put a hand on his chest and shook his head.
“Do you have a name?” the President asked.
“Not in your language. My name is chemical and goes before me among my own kind.”
“Do you have family within the ship?”
“We are family. All others of our kind are dead.”
Crockerman was sweating. His eyes locked on the Guest’s face, on the three golden-yellow eyes that stared at him without blinking. “You’ve told my colleagues, our scientists, that this ship is a weapon and will destroy the Earth.”
“It is not a weapon. It is a mother of new ships. It will eat your world and make new ships to travel elsewhere.”
“I don’t understand this. Can you explain?”
“Ask good questions,” the Guest demanded.
“What happened to your world?” Crockerman said without hesitating. He had already read a brief of Gordon and Feinman’s conversation with the Guest on this subject, but obviously wanted to hear it again, for himself.
“I cannot give the name of my world, or where it was in your sky. We have lost track of the time that has passed since we left. Memory of the world is dimmed by long cold sleeping. The first ships arrived and hid themselves within ice masses that filled the valleys of one continent. They took what they needed from these ice masses, and parts of them worked their way into the world. We did not know what was happening. In the last times, this ship, newly made, appeared in the middle of a city, and did not move. Plans were made as the planet trembled. We had been in space, even between planets, but there were no planets that attracted us, so we stayed on our world. We knew how to survive in space, even over long times, and we built a home within the ship, believing it would leave before the end. The ship did not prevent us. It left before the weapons made our world melted rock and gaseous water, and took us with it, inside. No others live that we are aware of.”
Crockerman nodded once and folded his hands in his lap. “What was your world like?”
“Similar. More ice, a smaller star. Many like myself, not in form but in thought. Our kind was many-formed, some swimming in cold melt-seas, some like myself walking on ground, some flying, some living in ice. All thought alike. Thousands of long-times past, we had molded life to our own wishes, and lived happily. The air was rich and filled with smells of kin. Everywhere on the world, even in the far lands of thick ice, you could smell cousins and children.”
Arthur felt his throat catching. Crockerman’s cheek was wet with a single tear. He did not wipe it away.
“Did they tell you why your world was being destroyed?”
“They did not speak with us,” the Guest said. “We guessed the machines were eaters of worlds, and that they were not alive, just machines without smells, but with thoughts.”
“No robots came out to speak with you?”
“I have language difficulties.”
“Smaller machines,” Rotterjack prompted. “Talk with you, deceive you.”
“No smaller machines,” the Guest said.
Crockerman took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “Did you have children?” he asked.
“My kind were not allowed children. I had cousins.”
“Did you leave some sort of family behind?”
“Yes. Cousins and teachers. Ice brothers by command bonding.”
Crockerman shook his head. That meant nothing to him; indeed, it meant little to anybody in the room. Much of this would have to be sorted out later, with many more questions: — if the Guest lived long enough to answer all their questions.
“And you learned to speak our language by listening to radio broadcasts?”
“Yes. Your wasting drew the machines to you. We listened to what the machines were gathering.”
Harry scribbled furiously, his pencil making quick scratching noises on the notepad.
“Why didn’t you try to sabotage the machine — destroy it?” Rotterjack asked.
“Had we been able to do that, the machine would never have allowed us on board.”
“Arrogance,” Arthur said, his jaw tightening. “Incredible arrogance.”
“You’ve told us you were asleep, hibernating,” Rotterjack said. “How could you study our language and sleep at the same time?”
The Guest stood motionless, not answering. “It is done,” it finally replied.
“How many languages do you know?” Harry asked, pencil poised.
“I am speaker of English. Others, still within, speak Russian, Chinese, French.”
“These questions don’t seem terribly important,” Crockerman said quietly. “I feel as if a nightmare has come over us all. Who can I blame for this?” He glanced around the room, his eyes sharp, hawklike. “Nobody. I can’t simply announce we have visitors from other worlds, because people will want to see the visitors. After the Australian release, what we have here can only demoralize and confuse.”
“I’m not sure how long we can keep this a secret,” McClennan said.
“How can we hold this back from our people?” Crockerman seemed not to have heard anybody but the Guest. He stood and approached the glass, grimly concentrating on the Guest. “You’ve brought us the worst possible news. You say there’s nothing we can do. Your…civilization…must have been more advanced than ours. It died. This is a terrible message to bring. Why did you bother at all?”
“On some worlds, the contest might have been more equal,” the Guest said. “I am tired. I do not have much more time.”