“Certainly not,” Hicks allowed.
“Of course you’ve heard of the Australian reports—”
“No. Sorry.”
“They’ve been coming in all day.”
“Yes, well, it’s only ten o’clock in the morning and I slept late.” His neck hair was standing on end. He regarded the news manager steadily, eyes slightly protruding.
“I was hoping we could get a comment from you, an expert on extraterrestrial phenomena.”
“Tell me, and I’ll comment.”
“The details are sketchy now, but apparently the Australian government is asking for advice on dealing with the presence of an alien spacecraft on their soil.”
“Pull the other one,” Hicks said reflexively.
“That’s what’s been reported.”
“Sounds loony.”
The manager’s face reddened. “I only bring the news, I , don’t make it.”
“I have been waiting all my life for a chance to report on a true extraterrestrial encounter. Call me a romantic, but I’ve always held out hope as to the possibility of such an encounter. I have always been disappointed.”
“You think the report’s a hoax?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“But if there were alien visitors, you’d be among the first to go talk with them?”
“I’d invite them home to meet my mum. My mother.”
“You’d welcome them in your house?”
“Certainly,” Hicks said, feeling himself warming. Now he could show his true wit and style.
“Thank you, Mr. Hicks.” The manager addressed his microphone now, cutting Hicks out. “Trevor Hicks is a scientist and a science reporter whose most recent book is a novel, Star home, dealing with the always-fascinating subjects of space colonization and first contact with extraterrestrial beings. Coming next on ‘90’s News: another attempt to capture drift sand in Pacific Beach, and the birth of a gray whale at Sea World.”
“May I see these Australian reports?” Hicks asked when the news manager had finished. He thumbed through the thin sheaf of wire service printouts. They were sketchy at best. A new Ayers Rock in the middle of the Great Victoria Desert. Geologists investigating. Anomalous formation.
“Remarkable,” he said, returning the sheaf to the news manager. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” the manager said, opening the door.
A bright yellow cab awaited him in the station parking lot. Hicks climbed into the back seat, neck hair still prickling. “Can you find a newsstand?” he asked the driver.
“Newsstand? Not in Clairemont Mesa.”
“I need a paper. A good paper. Morning edition.”
“I know a place on Adams Avenue that sells the New York Times, but it’s going to be yesterday’s.”
Hicks blinked and shook his head. His technological reflexes were slow. “To the Inter-Continental, then,” he said. Large parts of his brain still lived twenty years in the past. On his desk in the hotel was a device that could get him all the news he needed: his computer. With its built-in modem, he could access a dozen big newsnets within the hour. He could also peek into a few esoteric space bulletin boards for information the newspapers might not deem reliable enough to print. And there was always the enigmatic Regulus. Hicks hadn’t accessed Regulus during his periodic ramblings through the boards and nets, but he had been given the number and ID code by a friend, Chris Riley at Cal Tech.
Regulus, Riley had told him, knew unholy things about space and technology.
To hell with promoting a book. Hicks hadn’t felt this charged since 1969, when he had covered the lunar landing for New Scientist.
Arthur lay in bed, arms folded behind his head. Francine sat against bunched pillows beside him. She and Martin had returned the day before, to find him preoccupied with deep secrets. A preliminary task force scheduling and planning book was spread open but unread in his lap.
He was assessing a life without Harry. It seemed bleak, even when charged with mystery and events of more than historic significance.
Francine, black hair loose around her shoulders, glanced at her husband every few minutes, but did not interrupt his reverie. Arthur intercepted these glances without reacting. He almost wished she would ask.
He had spent all of his adult life knowing that Harry was available for discussion, by phone or letter; available for visits on a day’s notice, whenever they weren’t both too involved in work. They had matured together, double-dated (quaintly enough); Harry had approved wholeheartedly of Francine when a much younger Arthur had introduced them. “I’ll marry her if you don’t,” Harry had said, only half joking. Together, for ten years, Francine and Arthur had arranged meeting after meeting of various eligible and sensible women and Harry, but Harry had always politely drifted away from these good matches. It had surprised everybody when he met and married Ithaca Springer in New York in 1983. The marriage, against all predictions, had prospered. Young socialite banker’s daughter and scientist; not a likely success story, yet Ithaca had proved remarkably adept at keeping up with the rudiments of her husband’s work, and had brought Harry a most useful dowry: loving, persistent training in the social graces.
Both had kept a stubborn independence, but Arthur had sensed early on that Harry could no longer do without Ithaca. How would Ithaca get along without Harry?
Arthur hadn’t told Francine yet. Somehow, the news seemed Harry’s property, to be dispensed with his permission alone, but that prohibition was silly and Arthur’s wall of resistance was wearing thin.
Tomorrow morning he would fly to Vandenberg and be introduced to the “evidence.” That would be the biggest moment of his life, bar none, and yet here he was on the edge of tears.
His best friend might be dead within a year.
“Shit,” he said softly.
“All right,” Francine said, putting down her own book and rolling to lay her head on his shoulder. He closed the notebook and stroked her forehead. She wound her fingers through the thick salt-and-pepper patch of hair on his chest. “Are you going to tell me? Or is it more security stuff?”
“Not security,” he said. He ached to tell her about that. Perhaps in a few weeks he could. News was leaking rapidly; he suspected that soon even the Death Valley find would be public knowledge. Everybody was too excited.
“What, then?”
“Harry.”
“Well, what about him?”
The tears started to come.
“What’s wrong with Harry?” Francine asked.
“He has cancer. Leukemia. He’s working with me on…this project, but he might not see it through to the end.”
“Jesus,” Francine said, laying her palm flat on his chest. “Isn’t he getting treatment?”
“Of course. He just doesn’t think it will save him.”
“Five more years. We keep on hearing five more years, and it won’t be a killer anymore.”
“He doesn’t have five years. He may not have one.”
Francine hugged him closer and they lay together in silence for a moment. “How do you feel?” she finally asked.
“About Harry? It makes me feel…”He thought for a moment, frowning. “I don’t know.”
“Betrayed?” she asked softly.
“No. We’ve always been very independent friends. Harry doesn’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe him anything. Except the friendship, and…”
“Being there.”
“Yeah. Now he’s not going to be there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He does. You should have seen him.”
“He looks bad?”
“No. He looks pretty good, actually.” Arthur tried to imagine one’s entire body a battleground, with cancer spreading from point to point, or through the blood, unchecked, a kind of biological madness, a genetic suicide aided by mindless, lifeless clumps of protein and nucleic acid. He hated all errant microscopic things with a sudden passion. Why could not God have designed human bodies with seamless efficiency, that they might face the challenge of everyday life feeling at the very least internally secure?