The UN finally agreed, and the structure went into orbit around Earth, landed without a splash in the harbor, and floated peacefully offshore. After landing, it grew wider and flatter, a half dome that could be considered either an island or a ship. The US government decided it was a ship, subject to maritime law, and the media began capitalizing and italicizing it: the Embassy. Coast Guard craft circled it endlessly; the US navy had ships and submarines nearby. Airspace above was a no-fly zone, which was inconvenient for jets landing at New York’s three big airports. Fighter jets nearby stayed on high alert.
Nothing happened.
For another two months the aliens continued to talk through their machines to the UN, and only to the UN, and nobody ever saw them. It wasn’t known whether they were shielding themselves from Earth’s air, microbes, or armies. The Embassy was surveilled by all possible means. If anybody learned anything, the information was classified except for a single exchange:
Why are you here?
To make contact with humanity. A peace mission.
A musician set the repeated phrases to music, a sly and humorous refrain, without menace. The song, an instant international sensation, was the opening for playfulness about the aliens. Late-night comics built monologues around supposed alien practices. The Embassy became a tourist attraction, viewed through telescopes, from boats outside the Coast Guard limit, from helicopters outside the no-fly zone. A German fashion designer scored an enormous runway hit with “the Deneb look,” despite the fact that no one knew how the Denebs looked. The stock market stabilized as much as it ever did. Quickie movies were shot, some with Deneb allies and some with treacherous Deneb foes who wanted our women or gold or bombs. Bumper stickers proliferated like kudzu: I BRAKE FOR DENEBS. EARTH IS FULL ALREADY—GO HOME. DENEBS DO IT INVISIBLY. WILL TRADE PHYSICS FOR FOOD.
The aliens never commented on any of it. They published the promised physics, which only a few dozen people in the world could understand. They were courteous, repetitive, elusive. Why are you here? To make contact with humanity. A peace mission.
Marianne stared at the TV, where CNN showed footage of disabled children choosing Halloween costumes. Nothing about the discussion, the room, the situation felt real. Why would the aliens want to talk to her? It had to be about her paper, nothing else made sense. No, that didn’t make sense either.
“—donated by a network of churches from five states. Four-year-old Amy seizes eagerly on the black-cat costume, while her friend Kayla chooses—”
Her paper was one of dozens published every year on evolutionary genetics, each paper adding another tiny increment to statistical data on the subject. Why this one? Why her? The UN secretary-general, various presidents and premiers, top scientists—the press said they all talked to the Denebs from this modern fortress, through (pick one) highly encrypted devices that permitted no visuals, or one-way visuals, or two-way visuals that the UN was keeping secret, or not at all and the whole alien-human conversation was invented. The Embassy, however, was certainly real. Images of it appeared on magazine covers, coffee mugs, screen savers, T-shirts, paintings on velvet, targets for shooting ranges.
Marianne’s daughter Elizabeth regarded the aliens with suspicion, but then, Elizabeth regarded everyone with suspicion. It was one reason she was the youngest Border Patrol section leader in the country, serving on the New York task force along with several other agencies. She fit right in with the current American obsession with isolationism as an economic survival strategy.
Ryan seldom mentioned the aliens. He was too absorbed in his career and his wife.
And Noah—did Noah, her problem child, even realize the aliens were here? Marianne hadn’t seen Noah in months. In the spring he had gone to “try life in the South.” An occasional e-mail turned up on her phone, never containing much actual information. If Noah was back in New York, he hadn’t called her yet. Marianne didn’t want to admit what a relief that was. Her child, her baby—but every time they saw each other, it ended in recriminations or tears.
And what was she doing, thinking about her children instead of the aliens? Why did the ambassador want to talk to her? Why were the Denebs here?
To make contact with humanity. A peace mission…
“Dr. Jenner?”
“Yes.” She stood up from her chair, her jaw set. Somebody better give her some answers, now.
The young man looked doubtfully at her clothes, dark jeans and a ten-year-old green suede blazer, her standard outfit for faculty parties. He said, “Secretary Desai will join you shortly.”
Marianne tried to let her face show nothing. A few moments later Vihaan Desai, secretary-general of the United Nations, entered the room, followed by a security detail. Tall, elderly, he wore a sky-blue kurta of richly embroidered heavy silk. Marianne felt like a wren beside a peacock. Desai held out his hand but did not smile. Relations between the United States and India were not good. Relations between the United States and everybody were not good, as the country relentlessly pursued its new policy of economic isolationism in an attempt to protect jobs. Until the Denebs came, with their cosmos-shaking distraction, the UN had been thick with international threats. Maybe it still was.
“Dr. Jenner,” Desai said, studying her intently, “it seems we are both summoned to interstellar conference.” His English, in the musical Indian accent, was perfect. Marianne remembered that he spoke four languages.
She said, “Do you know why?”
Her directness made him blink. “I do not. The Deneb ambassador was insistent but not forthcoming.”
And does humanity do whatever the ambassador insists on? Marianne did not say this aloud. Something here was not adding up. The secretary-general’s next words stunned her.
“We, plus a few others, are invited aboard the Embassy. The invitation is dependent upon your presence, and upon its immediate acceptance.”
“Aboard… aboard the Embassy?”
“It seems so.”
“But nobody has ever—”
“I am well aware of that.” The dark, intelligent eyes never left her face. “We await only the other guests who happen to be in New York.”
“I see.” She didn’t.
Desai turned to his security detail and spoke to them in Hindi. An argument began. Did security usually argue with their protectees? Marianne wouldn’t have thought so, but then, what did she know about UN protocol? She was out of her field, her league, her solar system. Her guess was that the Denebs were not allowing bodyguards aboard the Embassy, and that the security chief was protesting.
Evidently the secretary-general won. He said to her, “Please come,” and walked with long strides from the room. His kurta rustled at his ankles, shimmering sky. Though not usually intuitive, Marianne could nonetheless sense the tension coming off him like heat. They went down a long corridor, trailed by deeply frowning guards, and down an elevator. Very far down—did the elevator go under the harbor? It must. They exited into a small room already occupied by two people, a man and a woman. Marianne recognized the woman: Ekaterina Zaytsev, the representative to the UN from the Russian Federation. The man might be the Chinese representative. Both looked agitated.