Part 2 (1/2)

The a.n.a.lyzer beeped as it completed its tests. The color display lit up, chemical names and their concentrations scrolling down the screen. Water. Very dilute carbonic acid: carbon dioxide in solution, basic fizz. Traces of calcium and magnesium salts. Kyle compared the list to a sample taken before the aliens had arrived. As best he could tell, the gla.s.s contained pure Perrier.

”Kyle?”

He turned to the casually dressed engineer, a friend from the nearby Naval Research Labs, who'd spent the evening in the kitchen. ”Yeah, Larry?””The air samples are different.” To an eyebrow raised in interrogation, Larry added, ”Check the plots yourself.”

Kyle rolled out two strip charts, one annotated ”6:05 p.m.” and the other ”9:00 p.m.” Spikes of unrecognized complex hydrocarbons appeared on only the later sheet. If what pa.s.sed for alien saliva

held no trace of metabolic toxins, apparently their exhalations did. Still, the nine-o'clock spike seemed somehow familiar.

Ah.

”Can I b.u.m a cigarette, Lar, and a match?” He lit up clumsily, almost choking as he inhaled. Waving

away the suddenly solicitous engineer, he took a more cautious drag. He directed part of this lungful into

a test tube, which he quickly stoppered.

Larry, catching on quickly, ran the latest sample through the ma.s.s spectrometer. The resulting strip chart, marked ”10:11 p.m.,” soon lay beside the others.

The evening's addition to the White House air was simply tobacco smoke. Whatever toxins the aliens ate

didn't appear in their breath, either.

Kyle poured a fresh cup of coffee, only in part to wash the unaccustomed and unwelcome smoke residues from his mouth. He also hoped for a caffeine jolt to settle jangled nerves. First, the conundrum about the aliens' inconvenient orbit around the moon; now, undetectable toxins.

He wondered when, or if, his study of the aliens would begin to make sense.

CHAPTER 3.

H'ffl Is Father of My Baby -National Investigator UFO Sightings Precede F'thk ”Arrival”

-Star Inquirer Satyr-like F'thk Are Devil's Sp.a.w.n -yesterday's most popular dialogue on the Modern Revelations News Group, AmericaNet F'thk Evaluate Earth for Commonwealth Members.h.i.+p -Was.h.i.+ngton Post Between two parallel lines of the Marine honor guard, a ramp descended from the Galactics' s.h.i.+p. What looked like a Hovercraft floated down the incline, any noise that it may have been making drowned out by the crowd. Four F'thk and a large cylindrical object filled the house-sized vehicle's open rear deck.

The one-way gla.s.s of the front compartment gave no clues as to the species of the driver. From the shortness of the cab, it seemed unlikely that the driver was another F'thk. Then again, maybe there was no driver.

At a stately ten miles per hour, the craft slid across the runway toward the George Was.h.i.+ngton Parkway.

Four Secret Service cars pulled out in front of it; limos and more Secret Service fell in behind to complete the motorcade.

At that speed, it'd be a while before the aliens arrived here at the Mall. Kyle moved the inset TV window

to the back of the palmtop computer's display before turning to his companion.

Darlene Lyons was quietly attractive, with twinkling brown eyes, a daintily upturned nose, and full lips slightly parted in a smile. In faded jeans and an even more faded Metallica T-s.h.i.+rt, her black hair flowing to the small of her back, she looked not at all like the business-suited and bunned diplomat with whom he'd shared a limo to the airport on Landing Day. Then again, it wasn't as if he routinely wore cutoffs, a sleeveless sweats.h.i.+rt, and an Orioles cap to the OEOB. Alas.

”I'm glad you joined me.”

”I'm glad you asked. You were right, too. I'll learn a lot more watching people during the ceremony than

seeing it live myself.” She raked both hands, fingers splayed, through her l.u.s.trous hair. ”Though I wouldn't have minded selling my ticket for the grandstands.”

Laughing, Kyle tapped a query into the comp. As they watched, the bid on eBay for a bleacher seat

popped up another three hundred dollars, to over fifteen grand. ”I don't think the Secret Service would've gone for either of us scalping a seat on the presidential reviewing stand. Beside, this way I'll have something to tell my folks the next time they try to impress me with having been at Woodstock.”

Another reason went unstated. For the soon-to-be-appointed head of the soon-to-be-announced

Presidential Commission on Galactic Studies, today was probably his last chance to get an unfiltered

a.s.sessment of the public's mood.As far as the eye or network helicopters thp-thp-thp-ing overhead could see, the Mall was packed. There would be other ceremonies like today's, of course, celebrations all around the world-Tiananmen Square tomorrow, Red Square the next day, Jardin de Tuileries the day after that-but today was different. Today was the first. Kyle and Darlene wanted to be in it, not just watching it. Judging from the crowd, much of the Eastern Seaboard had felt the same way.

He offered an elbow. ”Shall we mingle?”

Giving only a snort in response, whether to the anachronistic gesture or the impracticality of walking side by side through the crowd, he couldn't tell, she plunged ahead. He hastened after. Only by heading