Part 14 (1/2)
* * * Stripes, who had been pouncing alternately on her sister, the fronds of a fern rustling in the draft from the fireplace, and her own tail, skidded to a halt with a sudden confused expression. After a moment of whatever pa.s.sed for consideration in her young brain, the kitten skittered off in the direction of the nearest litter box. She thundered up the worn wooden stairs making noise in total disproportion to her size.
Swelk almost hoped the kitten would be too late. Tending to the Girillian menagerie had begun as a ploy; caring for them had become enn.o.bling. She yearned to regain that quiet satisfaction of being needed. There was a flurry of unseen digging noises, and then Stripes returned at full gallop to the salon.
With a leap and a midair twist the cat was off in pursuit of something only it could see. Swelk waggled her sensor stalks in amused confusion . . . the thing Kyle called a poltergeist baffled her translation program.
With thoughts of him, her momentary good mood vanished. The human to whom she felt closest had not stopped by in two days. And it was not only Kyle-none of her most frequent visitors had come by.
Even an alien newly arrived could tell from the demeanor of her guards that the subst.i.tute questioners were of lesser status than those who had disappeared.
What Kyle and the others were doing, she could not imagine.
* * * ”It seems clear-cut enough to me,” said Kyle. He didn't entirely feel that way, but the other summiteers were erring in the opposite direction. ”Either Swelk is a defector or she's not. Which do we believe?” Everyone began animatedly speaking at once, stopped, then all started up again. On the next random retry, the ex-spy got the floor. ”The ET could be a real defector-and delusional. She could be entirely sane and sincere, and unaware that she's been filled with disinformation. She could be lying through whatever she uses for teeth, for reasons fathomable only to celery-eyed monsters, and still reveal . . .
with whatever encouragement is appropriate . . . incredibly valuable information. We need to understand her motivations to have any hope of making sense of anything she tells us.”
From nowhere came a memory of Swelk dangling a sc.r.a.p of yarn above leaping kittens. ”Delusional? A
secret agent? Erin, have you ever actually met Swelk?””No, by intent.” Fitzhugh impatiently flicked a potato-chip crumb from the table. ”My people have. I talk to them; I read their reports. I'm objective. It's the professional way to handle supposed defectors, even when the stakes aren't so high.”
Ryan Bauer popped open another c.o.ke. ”It's just too convenient that nothing in Swelk's story can be confirmed-short of what could be a suicidal attack on the F'thk vessel. She claims she's some kind of outcast and dilettante social scientist, excusing her not knowing anything helpful. The lifeboat she came down on is melted slag. Her computer can't be experimented with, because it contains her translator. Her so-called bioconverter can't be fiddled with because that would put at risk her food supply.” He rolled his eyes. ”Could the little monster's story be any more convenient?”
”Oh, please,” Darlene snapped. Beside her, Britt's head swung back and forth, like a spectator at a tennis match. And just as unuseful.”Excuse me,” said Kyle, stunned by the unexpected disbelief. Swelk had specifically sought him out. Was he too close to, too influenced by, the little ET? ”Maybe we can approach the problem another way. The most critical of Swelk's disclosures, whatever her motives, is the nonexistence of the mother s.h.i.+p. If we can corroborate that, if we can be sure there's 'only' the so-called F'thk vessel to handle, her story would be valuable.”
Ryan shoved back his chair, its legs grating against the floor. ”Come on, Kyle. Small telescopes see it.
Radar shows it.”This time, Kyle had six copies of the images that had almost convinced Britt. He pa.s.sed the prints around the table without explanation, letting the pictures tell their own story.
”Holy c.r.a.p,” reacted the CIA exec, her eyes bright. ”The microwave and visible-light images don't match.” Ryan, nodding in agreement, looked chagrined. The USAF s.p.a.ce Command could have made the same observation . . . weeks ago.
”Why haven't we seen a discrepancy before?” asked Darlene. ”I know the mother s.h.i.+p has been scanned
by radar.””Radar's ordinarily used to locate and identify an object, not to create a detailed image of it,” Bauer explained. ”What Kyle's showing us took a lot of computation. Why bother when it was so plainly visible to telescopes?”
Kyle rapped the table confidently. ”The reason, my friend, is because our defector said there could be no mother s.h.i.+p. I'm saying the optical image is a hologram, and the featureless glob must be the echo of a radar buoy we can't see.”
Darlene, for some reason, refused to catch his eye. What was going through her mind?She didn't give Kyle long to wonder. ”You know I like Swelk. I trust her, too. That said, the stakes are too high to go with my gut. Like Reagan famously said of the Sovs and disarmament, I think we have to 'trust, but verify.' ”Dar was the last person he'd expected to object. ”What other explanation is there?”She tipped her head, tugging a lock of hair in reflection. ”I defer to every one of you about technology.
Without knowing much about tech, though, I can concoct another explanation for what we're seeing. Kyle, you've explained before that the aliens have radar stealthing. Their satellites that upload recordings from the souvenir orbs, the satellites that we watched destroy that Russian rocket . . . they were stealthy.”
”Go on,” encouraged Britt.”So imagine for a moment that Swelk's account isn't true. Whether she's purposefully lying or has been filled with disinformation, someone, in this scenario, wants us to believe her. They want us to mistakenly conclude that the mother s.h.i.+p is fake.” Darlene swept a hand grandiloquently over the pictures, her words tumbling out in a rush. ”Couldn't they enable a stealth mode on their small craft? Then those smaller s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps would be seen visually but not by radar. Isn't it at least possible that a real, physical mother s.h.i.+p could use a stealth mode to prevent a true radar reflection and, whenever pinged, emit a synthesized signal that matches a featureless large blob? Wouldn't those stratagems also explain your observations?”
Scientist, general, and spy master exchanged surprised glances. Erin Fitzhugh found her voice first. ”If
you ever get tired of working at State, there's a spot for you at the Agency.”
Discussion continued-of Swelk's debriefings, of a.n.a.lyses of her salvaged equipment, of the international dangers posed by recent F'thk secretive whisperings-but the decision-making part of the meeting had ended. Whatever their opinion of Swelk, no one could be certain her story was true. There
would be, for now, no disclosure to the Russians of her arrival and claims. Unwilling themselves to recommend a desperate attack on the F'thk s.h.i.+p, they dare not risk influencing the Russians to try.
Would they be ready to share, Kyle wondered, before a nuclear miscalculation obliterated them all?
CHAPTER 21.
Stinky humphed with satisfaction, leaning into the pushbroom that now served as his brush. Swelk groomed the swampbeast with long, smooth strokes, quietly pleased at the glossiness of his leathery skin. As Swelk worked, Smelly b.u.t.ted her head, first gently, then insistently, against her. ”Your turn is . . . ”
Smelly's importuning was not simple impatience for her turn. Swelk plummeted, only then realizing they had all been suspended in midair. Stinky and Smelly shrank as she plunged, until only their fading fearful trumpeting remained. A recess of her brain noticed without explanation that the animals had not fallen.
She shuddered awake, intertwined digits rigid with fear. Bellows of unseen swampbeasts filled her mind.
After forcing her digits to relax, to unlace, she tried but failed to stand. Visions of terrified swampbeasts overwhelmed her as she toppled, overcome by dizziness.
The nightmare did not surprise her-as much as she already loved the kittens, she missed the
swampbeasts terribly. For the intense vertigo, however, she had no explanation.
Blackie and Stripes tumbled into the room, curious, perhaps, at the unexpected nighttime noises from Swelk. She preferred to think they had come to console her. As the exile stroked their soft fur, she could not help but wonder, What is wrong with me?
* * * It was not yet 9:00 a.m., and four new pies were already cooling on the counter. The kitchen sink overflowed with mixing bowls, measuring cups, and utensils Kyle couldn't name. Hours before the Thanksgiving turkey would go into the oven, his seventy-year-old, gray-haired, stooping mother kept bustling.
Britt had more or less insisted he take a break. ”Juggling knives blindfolded while riding a unicycle at the cliff's edge isn't instinctive behavior. A few months of it gets to most people. You should take some time away.” To Kyle's rejoinder that he didn't exactly work for Britt anymore, the politician had answered, ”Then accept it as advice from a friend. You're fried. Go away for a few days.” So here he was.