“No. Something else, having to do with you, I presume.” Ithaca would never inquire. “Can I get you coffee? It’s been cold this winter. Today is especially dreary.”
“Yes, please. The office?”
“Sanctum sanctorum. How’s Francine? Marty?”
“They’re fine.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, obviously anxious to join Harry. Ithaca nodded.
“I’ll bring the coffee into the office. Go.”
“Thanks.” He always felt like complimenting Ithaca on her appearance, which was, as usual, wonderful — but she did not take kindly to compliments. How she looked and dressed was as natural to her as breathing. He smiled awkwardly and headed down the hall to the office.
Harry sat in an overstuffed chair, fire crackling brightly in the grate. His office had originally been the master bedroom, and after his marriage, he had kept it there. There were three large bedrooms with fireplaces in the house, enough to go around. Stacks of books rose beside his chair, some of them huge, old, and well thumbed. An Olympia typewriter hung keyboard down over the fireplace like a hunting trophy, while from its return key dangled three carbon-encrusted test tubes looped together by a red ribbon. The story behind this had to do with Harry’s doctoral thesis and was seldom told when Harry was sober.
In Harry’s lap rested a copy of Brin and Kuiper’s book on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. McClennan and Rotterjack had kept copies of the same book on their office desks. Arthur also noticed Hicks’s novel on the corner of a roll-around table, almost crowded off by stacks of infodisks.
“Finally, by God,” Harry said. “I’ve been stuck here getting over nausea and waiting for the word. What’s the word?”
“I’m to go to Australia with most of the task force. I’m leaving in three days, with a couple of hours stopover in Tahiti. We should just be able to put out a short report.”
“The newshounds are on our trail,” Harry said, raising his thick eyebrows.
“The President thinks we should release the story within a month. Rotterjack and the others aren’t enthusiastic.”
“And you?”
“Newshounds,” Arthur concurred, shrugging. “We may not have much choice soon.”
“They’ll have to release those folks at Vandenberg. Can’t hold them forever. They’re physically clean and healthy.”
Arthur closed the office door. “The Guest?”
Harry’s face worked. “Bogus,” he said. “I think it’s as much a robot as the Australian shmoos.”
“What does Phan think?”
“He’s good, but this has stretched him. He thinks it’s a product of a biologically advanced civilization, kind of a future citizen, sterile and largely artificial, but still bona fide an individual.”
“Why do you disagree?”
“It was never meant to process wastes. Planned obsolescence. The Guest poisoned itself and broke down. There was no evidence of any way to void the wastes through any sort of external dialysis. No anus, no urinary tract. No valves, no exit points. No lungs. It breathed through its skin. Not very efficient for a creature its size. And no sweat glands. Unconvincing as hell. But — I’m not so convinced that I’m going to stand up and shout howdy before all the President’s men. After all, that just complicates things, doesn’t it?”
Arthur nodded. “You’ve read Colonel Rogers’s report and seen his pictures?”
Harry held up a new infodisk, the security plastic sticker Day-Glo orange on its label. “An Air Force car brought it by yesterday. Impressive.”
“Frightening.”
“I thought you’d be spooked,” Harry said. “We think alike, don’t we?”
“We always have, within limits,” Arthur said.
“Okay, I say the biology’s a ringer. What about the rock?”
“Warren’s brought in his report on the externals. He says it appears authentic, right down to mineral samples.
However, he agrees with Edward Shaw about the suspicious lack of weathering. Abante can’t make heads or tails of the interior. He says it looks like a set from a science fiction movie — pretty but nonspecific. And no sign of any other Guests.”
“So what do we conclude?”
Arthur pulled a folding stool from behind the door, opened it, and squatted. “I think we see the outlines of our draft, don’t you?”
Harry nodded. “We’re being played with,” he said.
Arthur held up an extended thumb.
“Now, why would they want to play with us?” Harry asked.
“To draw us out and discover our capabilities?” Arthur ventured.
“Are they afraid we can beat them if they aren’t careful?”
“That might be an explanation,” Arthur said.
“Lord. They must be thousands of years ahead of us.”
“Not necessarily.”
“How could it be otherwise?” Harry asked, his voice rising an octave.
“Captain Cook,” Arthur offered. “The Hawaiians thought he was some sort of god. Two hundred years later, they drive cars just like the rest of us…and watch TV.”
“They were subjugated,” Harry said. “They didn’t have a chance, not against cannon.”
“They killed Cook, didn’t they?”
“Are you suggesting some sort of resistance movement?” Harry asked.
“We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.”
“Damn right. Let’s stick to basics.” Harry folded the book on his lap. “You’re wondering about my health.”
Arthur nodded. “Can you travel?”
“Not far, not soon. Yesterday they pumped me full of magic bullets. Bullets to restructure my immune system, to strengthen my bone marrow…Thousands of little tame retroviruses doing their thing. I feel like hell most of the time. Still, I’ve got what’s left of my hair. We’re not doing radiation or heavy chemicals yet.”
“Can you work? Travel around California?”
“Anywhere you want me, within a two-hour emergency hop to UCLA Medical Center. I’m a wreck, Arthur. You shouldn’t have chosen me. I shouldn’t have agreed.”
“You’re still thinking clearly, aren’t you?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re useful. Necessary.”
Harry looked down at the folded book in his lap. “Ithaca’s not taking this well.”
“She seems cheerful.”
“She’s a good actress. At night, in her sleep, her face…she cries.” Harry’s own eyes were moist at the thought, and he seemed much younger, almost a boy, glancing up at Arthur. “Christ. I’m glad I’m the one who might die. If things were the other way around, and she was going through this, I’d be in worse shape than I am now.”
“You’re not going to die,” Arthur said sternly. “We’re almost into the twenty-first century. Leukemia isn’t the killer it used to be.”
“Not for children, Arthur. But for me…”He raised his hands.
“You leave us, and I’m going to be pretty damn inconsolable.” Completely against his will, he felt his own eyes grow damp. “Remember that.”
Harry said nothing for a moment. “The Forge of God,” he finally commented, shaking his head. “If that ever gets into the papers…”
“One nightmare at a time,” Arthur said. Harry called Ithaca to prepare a guest bedroom for Arthur. As she did that, Arthur placed a collect call to Oregon, the first he had had a chance to make in two days.
His conversation with Francine was brief. There was nothing he could tell her, except that he was well. She was polite enough, and knew him well enough, not to mention the news reports.
The call was not enough. When it was over, Arthur missed his family more than ever.
24