Maximum Warp
Chapter One: First Contact
I hefted the pack on my shoulders and groaned. Seems like every year it gets harder. I told myself firmly that the first couple days were always tough, that way. By day four, I’d be fine.
Sure I would.
I tightened the straps some, cinched the waist strap in a bit more, took a mouthful of water, then checked to make sure my Subaru Forester, now coated liberally with dust from the dirt access road, was locked. I growled, “stop stallin’, old man!” Then I picked up my walking stick and stepped off. Next stop – hopefully – would be the granite and hardwoods of Sage’s Ravine.
About fifteen minutes in, I met up with the Appalachian Trail and paused to tighten laces and grumble at myself. Shoulda hit the junction in more like ten minutes, I thought. But truly, it was a mild enough grumble. It was a beautiful day in early June, I had turned in all my grades and wouldn’t have to read or listen to any students butcher the English language for almost three months. If I was really lucky, I wouldn’t have to listen to much conversation at all.
My colleague Janet Seldon, who taught generations of bored students the joys of 19th Century American Literature, always said that the students kept her young. And I suppose that they had; Janet and I were contemporaries who were hired, and even got tenure, the same year, but anyone who saw or heard us today would swear she was fifteen years younger than me. Because students didn’t keep me young. They kept me frustrated, and increasingly aware of my age.
I’m a professor of linguistics – sorry, make that “The Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics” – at Gryphon College, one of New England’s plethora of institutions of higher education devoted to the liberal arts. My special area of study is linguistic drift – how language changes over time. So I should be excited to see evidence of it doing so in “real time,” to use a modern expression. But it stopped being fun and interesting with the advent of modern communication forms like text messaging and instant messaging. Language wasn’t just drifting anymore; it was disintegrating. I shook my head. “Kids dees days,” I grumbled.
Enough of that! It was a beautiful day, summer vacation was only just beginning, and there were no other humans in sight. The gentleman whose hindquarters graced the Carter Cecil Jackson Chair was going to take a long, long walk!
* * * * *
It had taken me a bit longer than I had hoped, but the fifth night after I started my trek found me warming my hands over a small campfire a couple miles from the summit of Mount Greylock, the night sky occluded by the surrounding forest of dark spruce. I was tired and a bang I’d gotten on my right ankle ached. But, as I had hoped, I'd managed to work out the kinks that come from too many hours behind a desk every day. And, my body no longer grumbled quite so hard about the lean rations. Nine months a year to get soft, three months to work it off. A doctor would suggest I shoot for a bit more consistency – indeed, quite a few of them had, over the years – but it worked for me and I expected I’d outlive all the damned pill-pushers.
My thoughts meandered as I watched the fire. For the fourth year in a row, the dean had given the bonus money to junior colleagues whom she was trying to “bring along.” “They’re the future, James, and damn, the future’s bright!” I smiled through my gritted teeth. Always the young, the attractive . . . . My years of experience, my eminence within an (admittedly esoteric) field, carried no weight at all. I was five years out from being able to retire; no-one was going to invest in me when the bright, attractive future beckoned. It’s not like I could go off and earn a pile in the private sector.
“We really need an eminent linguist,” said no CEO ever.
Janet Seldon had been indignant for me; said I ought to fight. But I didn’t have a lot of fight left in me, and that made me think that the dean probably was right. Even at 45, James Marshall Wainwright had been a fighter. At 60, not so much. That meandering thought really weighed me down.
I heard a branch snap nearby and became instantly alert. Someone – or something – was out there. Probably some guy who got lost, but in the Northeast woods in June a black bear was a distinct possibility. I made sure that my bear spray was near at hand, cursing that my fire-gazing had completely wrecked my night vision. But what walked into the circle of my fire’s light was a whole lot stranger than a black bear.
“Howdy, old scudder,” said the man in the gray wool suit with the narrow tie. “Share your fire?”
Now, my campsite was two miles’ hike from anything; no one would come out this far wearing a suit and . . . wait. Heels? And what the hell was he saying? Also, and most immediately relevant: no-one shares a fire with strangers in the woods. No-one. I just sat and gaped.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, conversationally.
Finally I managed to sputter, “What?” Which probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing to say, but there were extenuating circumstances. Plus, I wondered whether I had finally picked up the wrong mushrooms to throw in tonight’s stew. I prided myself on my foraging skills, but pride goeth before . . . well, it certainly "wenteth" before whatever the hell this was.
Gray suit guy, whose fluffy hair and Burt Reynolds mustache were as much at war with his G-man suit as the red pumps, just looked at me, unperturbed. “Why what?” he asked.
A line from an old movie incongruously sprang into my head, and I muttered, “I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” But I managed to pick up the bear spray, hold it with a reasonably steady hand, and say, “Not a step further. I don’t know who the hell you are or what you’re doing here, but you’d better head back to wherever you came from, RIGHT NOW!”
He looked at me owlishly for a moment. “Hold yer taters. I am just an explorer. Boldly going. I am sincere as a $5 funeral.”
I could not place his accent; it seemed like what you would get if you collected a hundred years of English variations and hit “puree.” “You take another step, and I’ll give you that funeral for free,” I growled.
He took the step anyway, and my finger went down on the bear spray. Which, it turns out, is a bad idea around a campfire. Who knew?
“Yahhhhh!” I screamed, as flames charged towards the canister in my hand. I tossed it away, frantically, shaking my slightly singed fingers. I looked up to see that the flame had also caught my unwelcome guest.
One of the arms of his suit was on fire, and his head was wreathed in smoke. Oddly, he seemed unperturbed. He looked at his arm like he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
“Drop and roll, idiot!,” I shouted.
He looked at me curiously, then calmly removed the suit jacket, rolled it up in his hands and dropped it in the fire. His dress shirt, bizarrely, had no sleeves.
Who makes a dress shirt without sleeves?
I’d had enough. “Who the hell are you?” I shouted. “Some sort of space alien?”
Of all things, that finally seemed to get his attention. He jumped across the fire in a single leap, grabbed me with one surprisingly bony hand, and shouted “Two to beam up!” I was still gaping at him as I felt my feet lift off the ground, and both of us were soaring into the night sky at an impossible rate of speed.
“Shit,” I said.
He looked at me strangely. “That would be contraindicated at this time.”
Perhaps, but it was a moot point. I literally had been scared shitless. Passing out, however, seemed like a really good idea, so I did that instead.
* * * *
When I came to, I looked around and shook my head. I had never been a fan of the series, but . . . yeah. The bridge of the starship Enterprise was pretty recognizable. The guys in the chairs weren’t. They looked human, mostly, but I had seen Galaxy Quest. I was going to go with termites.
The one in Kirk’s chair chittered something, and a disembodied voice appeared to translate. “You are restored to consciousness. Correct?”
The disembodied voice was recognizable. “Hey Siri,” I said, “Self-destruct.” I was echoed by the sound of her familiar voice chittering.
The captain figure chittered some more, and Siri’s voice said, “I am not the being, Siri. We have accessed this interface from our ship to improve communications.”
“Oh, aren’t we in for a fun time,” I said. Siri and I don’t get along. “What’s with all the nonsense? If you’re human I’m a rabbit. Why take me, and what’s your game?”
Bold words, I suppose. But I was honestly feeling pretty pissed off. These creatures could probably crush me like a bug, but they seemed like such complete doofuses that they'd probably miss if they tried.
The being chittered some more. Siri said, “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t get that.” This made me perversely happy. Maybe Siri didn’t like him either.
More chittering. “I’m sorry, Captain. I have no listing for Starbucks in Estonia.”
“What?” I asked.
“Which what?” asked a voice behind me. I turned and saw that Gray Suit Guy was here as well, sans suit jacket.
More chittering from the guy in the center seat. He appeared to be chittering at one of the other “people,” who made a show of making some adjustments to dials on his phony display panel.
Siri’s voice resumed, presumably translating again. “We are not human. We thought this image might be a useful reference point for you. We are travelers. We did not want to ‘take’ you. Our Worm erred.”
“I did not mistakes,” Gray Suit Guy said. “I carefully studied all transmissions. Maybe this human is defective?” He was looking at me in a very unfriendly way, which was strange because his face was not very expressive.
Chittering from the “Captain,” followed by Siri’s voice: “He is young and learns well. Champion. We sent him to make contact.”
I looked at Gray Suit Guy. “Exactly what did you study?” I asked him.
“The transmissions we receive in deep space. The Evening News With Walter Cronkite. The FBI. Star Trek. The Green Berets. Huntley-Brinkley. Adam-12. Bonanza. All in the Family. 60 Minutes. Dragnet. Mary Tyler Moore. The Wizard of Oz.”
He was going to go on listing them all, but I had the idea. “Oh, lordy,” I said. “I read an article about this, once. How we had been just throwing off all of this electromagnetic garbage since the 1930s, and if anyone ever picked it up, they would get the strangest view of humanity.” Sounds like they picked up a slice from the late sixties or early 70s. Talk about not catching us at our best.
The rest of the article came back to me and I added, quietly. “The authors thought anyone who saw it all would probably figure they needed to come and wipe us out. That what you’re here for?”
Gray Suit Guy digested that for a moment, then said, “Ain’t you startin’ to itch before you git bit? We ain’t threatenin’ no-one.”
“Ah . . . .” I tried to think how to say this diplomatically. “You might want to use the Siri interface, big guy. I hate to say it – you have no idea just how much it pains me to say it – but it might be better.”
Chittering from the Captain’s chair, followed by, “The Worm is our brightest Cadet. I am sure his study will have mastered your language.”
I shook my head at such naivete. “Your planet must be a whole lot older than ours,” I said.
The guy sitting at “Spock’s station” – naturally – broke in to chitter something. Siri translated, “Yes, our sensors indicate that this is the case. Our world is approximately 27.635 million solar years older than the planet we currently orbit. Why is this relevant?”
“If he’s your best and brightest,” I said, pointing to Gray Suit Guy with my chin, “I can’t imagine how you beat us into deep space. Unless you had a wicked long head start.”
Gray Suit Guy said, “Ah, Jeez. Stifle yourself!” The guy in the captain’s chair started chittering again, and waving his arms. He went on chittering for quite a while. I was regretting my snide remark; it really wasn’t fair. Language is HARD. It’s not simple rocket science.
Finally the Siri interface kicked in. In her usual, melodious voice, which failed to convey any emotional content beyond cheerful helpfulness, Siri said, “That will be enough. We want to contact someone about acquiring special materials we have detected below. Ensign Worm was conducting initial scouting. He approached you because you were not near other humans. We needed to see if his studies would allow him to communicate effectively.”
Siri went silent. Grey Suit Guy was watching me, but did not respond. I said, “If you’re asking my opinion . . . my professional opinion . . . he would not be a good choice.”
“Why am I not excellent choice?” Gray Suit Guy – Ensign Worm? – asked. The tone of his voice – which might or might not match his actual intent – was puzzled rather than angry. I decided to assume he got that part right.
“Look,” I said, “It’s not your fault. This is actually my area of expertise. Language. It sounds like you built a database out of a bunch of transmissions from, I don’t know . . . . fifty years ago? What you managed was impressive enough. But it takes human young YEARS to learn the rudiments of their own language.”
Assuming they ever do, I added to myself silently, thinking of those dismal final exams I’d just finished grading. “And someone who tries to learn a second human language – we have lots of languages – can spend years at it and make mistakes no native speaker would make. I don’t know what your language or languages are like, but chances are good they aren’t like ours at ALL. Plus, human languages drift, change, over time, and fifty years is plenty of time to have it happen, believe me.”
There was also the added problem that some of the transmissions included dialogue written by men born in the 1920s who were guessing what people in the 1960s would THINK people in the 1870s – or the 23rd century, for that matter – would sound like. And how was I supposed to explain THAT nuance?
I tried, “a person who would say ‘stifle yourself’ would never say ‘hold your taters.’ Some of your reference materials weren’t using then-standard English. They were pretending to talk like people from 150 years ago.”
Ensign Worm said, “Are you talking through your hat? Why would they do this? Were they attempting to trap rule breaking humans? Like Efram Zimbalist Junior?”
I shook my head, then realized the gesture would mean nothing to them. “No,” I said. “It’s complicated. As a species, we get bored easily. So we come up with ways to keep from being bored. We tell stories. You said, ‘Gunsmoke and Bonanza,’ right? The lines in those scripts – sorry; the things the humans in those transmissions were saying – probably no-one ever talked like that except in a story. If they did, it was so long ago no-one remembers. You’re lucky you picked up an old man like me; at least my Dad used to watch that stuff.”
Siri took a long time chittering my dialogue so that the “Captain” could hear it. Then he chittered for a bit, and Siri took up his words. “We want materials. Will you help us get them?”
“I’m not a prospector,” I replied. “If you need a professor of linguistics, I can probably be persuaded to help. But I can’t see why you would. No-one else does.”
Chitter, chitter. Siri’s voice responded, “We do not need help extracting resources. What we want has been mined and processed. We wish an exchange of value. You could arrange this?”
“An ‘exchange of value?’” I asked. “What are you looking to buy?”
Chitter, chitter. Siri’s pleasant voice responded, “The technical specifications require what you call weapons-grade uranium.”
“WHAT!!!!” I said, going from zero to petrified in 0.5 seconds. “What the hell do you want THAT shit for!!! No way! I KNEW it – You want to wipe us out!!”
Chitter, chitter. “No,” Siri’s voice said. “We are not soldiers. I do not speak for the ‘swarm leader . . . .’”
Ensign Worm interrupted the voice of Siri to say, “You don’t even speak TO the Swarm Leader.” I looked in his direction, and he said, “We are independent operators, yes? Not like Eff Bee Eye or Ell Ay Pee Dee. We do not carry badges. Or guns. Not like Green Berets.
“Okay,” I said, with what I thought was truly commendable restraint, “but what you’re trying to ‘acquire’ is more dangerous than any gun. Even all the guns in this gun-soaked country of mine.”
“Perhaps,” said Worm. “But your ‘weapons-grade uranium’ is powerful aphrodisiac for us.”
I was gaping again. Finally, I said, somewhat weakly, “and look at that shine!”
“I do not understand this ‘shine,’” said Worm.
“A joke,” I said, feeling a bit faint.
“We do not have the humor,” he replied.
“You don’t say,” I did say. “But listen, there’s no way anyone is going to sell me weapons grade uranium. I honestly doubt anyone is going to sell you that stuff, period, and it won’t matter WHAT you say you’re going to use it for.”
The ‘captain’ chittered and Siri’s voice said, “we just need someone to speak for our interests. We can give value.”
“An honest day’s wages for an honest day’s work,” said Worm. “Just like on the Ponderosa.”
“Half their workers ended up dead,” I snarled. “Besides, no-one’s going to listen to a broken down old professor of linguistics from Gryphon College. They’ll just say I’ve gone off the deep end and lock me up.”
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Siri said, chirpily. “I didn’t get that.”
“Shut up, Siri, and don’t call me Jim!,” I snapped. “James! Can’t you remember James?” And there I was, arguing with the damned AI from my phone again. God, I hate those things!
I took a deep breath and tried again. “I am not the kind of person that people listen to. If I’m your spokesman, I will not be believed. You need someone else.”
Chitter, chitter. “What kind of person should we acquire?”
“You don't . . . .” I started to say, but stopped. Probably not useful to go into the history of why talking about “acquiring” humans was “contraindicated.” I shook my head to clear it. They didn’t need someone IN government, they needed someone who could TALK to someone in government. About buying weapons-grade uranium? I dunno. A retired general? Former politician? Who were they, anyway? Just versions of me – old and useless, ready for the pasture . . . .
The absurdity of what they were asking hit me like a steam shovel. No-one who HAD weapons-grade uranium was going to sell it, period. And if they did, they weren’t going to sell it to “independent operator” space aliens! It wasn’t going to happen. But . . . We had actually been contacted by another species. A space-traveling species! Oh, that was going to change the world. It would be a whole new . . . future.
Who was the best choice, for OUR species? Hell with what the damned termites wanted. Who would have the flexibility to re-imagine the world? And be listened to when they had?
I said, “I don’t know. Try someone young. And good-looking.”
“They would listen to this young and good-looking human?,” Siri’s voice asked after a short burst of chitters.
“Prolly not,” I responded, “but it would increase your odds.” It occurred to me that a species that did not understand boredom, entertainment or humor probably wouldn’t grok gambling either. I tried, “maximize the probability of success.”
Chitter, chitter. “'Young' I understand,” Siri’s voice spoke for the captain. “You mean like Worm. Not fully-formed. Strange custom. But why is ocular acuity important?”
“No, no,” I said, irritated. “Not good vision, 'good-looking.' It means . . . Oh, Lord. Does your species understand aesthetics? Is it a concept?”
Chitter, chitter got translated, “The definition in our updating database is circular. Explain in context.”
“Uh . . . “ I said unhelpfully. Then on a whim I said, “Hey Siri, if you’re still doing your normal gig, what is the definition of aesthetics?”
Siri said, “I can help you with that, Jim. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste.”
Okay, I saw where that wasn’t going to help them. Besides, they needed context. I asked, “the forms you are using to, err . . . interface with me. I assume they aren’t your actual bodies?”
Ensign Worm said, “Correct. You would speak, illusion?”
“Okay,” I said, “you picked different forms, right? You don’t all look the same. How did you pick them?”
“Random image generation from human databases we are tapping,” Worm responded. “We did outstanding, yes?”
“That’s complicated,” I said. “The faces . . . look okay. I mean, everything’s where it’s supposed to be. But . . . I can’t express this very well. Your nose seems kind of large for your face. And your hands maybe seem small. Fine. It’s like . . . .” I thought about a good analogy. “The clothes you were wearing when I met you. Also random?”
“Not exactly,” Worm responded. “Transmissions indicated Walter Cronkite is much respected. Trusted. He always wears this clothes. We copied.”
“You absolutely did not see a picture of Walter Cronkite wearing heels!” I said. Before he could ask, I said, “shoes, you know? The things we wear on the appendages we use for walking.”
“No,” Worm said. “In all transmissions, he was sit behind a desk. We use different source for ‘shoes.’ It was . . .” he paused, chittered something to the “Spock station” guy, got an answer back and said, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” I had a hard time avoiding a laugh.
“It’s what I was saying earlier . . . aesthetics is like a language. What combinations of shapes and colors and textures look pleasing to us, look ‘right’ . . . if you aren’t a native, you’ll make mistakes. The human images you are using to talk to me – some of them are more visually pleasing to a human of my culture than others.”
“How do we determine ‘good looking’ to a human of your culture,” Worm asked, sensibly.
I thought about it. What was that magazine, the one that was filled with gossip about beautiful people . . . Oh right. “Does the database you are accessing include a periodical publication called “People Magazine?” Spock-guy fiddled with stuff and chittered.
“Affirmative, Jim,” translated Siri’s mellow voice.
I ground my teeth. Damned AI! “Fine,” I ground out. “Just analyze the images of humans in People Magazine. Those are people considered to be good-looking.”
“Should we acquire one of these people?” Chittered the captain.
“Ah . . . no,” I said. “Most of those guys are not our, ah, best and brightest. Just get someone who looks like they do. And, ah, you don’t ‘acquire’ them. You hire them. Please, just trust me on this one.”
They all started chittering at each other, the Captain, the Spock guy, Worm, and another guy who hadn’t chittered earlier. The conversation was going on for quite a bit. The fourth guy wandered off to another “station” and they kept chittering. It was getting old.
“Ah, guys?” I asked, looking at the guy in Kirk’s seat, “If you don’t need me for anything else? I’d kind of like to be getting back?”
The Captain looked at me again and chittered some more. The translation kicked in. “We have to complete our survey of this star system, and we don’t have time to find someone else who meets your design specifications. We need to ‘hire’ you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but the Siri voice just continued, “We can alter your physical age and aesthetics to match the requirements you specified, though it will take about thirty of your days for the process to conclude. We should be back in the inner system by that time and we can discuss it further.”
I looked at the Captain incredulously and said, “Right. So you’re going to wave some magic wand and make me young and good looking? That’s the ‘plan!’”
I suddenly felt a stabbing pain in my gluteus maximus and whirled around to see Worm holding what appeared to be a truly humongous syringe. He looked at me dispassionately and said, “Dammit, Jim. I’m a doctor, not a magician.”
I decided this was another really good time to pass out.
To be continued. Prolly.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 2: Eye of the Beholder
A woodpecker woke me up. Presumably it had found a dead tree to pound its head against, but I felt somehow like it was trying out my skull. Damn, my head hurt!
I opened my eyes and wished that I hadn’t. The sun was up and bright enough to stun a bull elephant. I shut my eyes tight and vowed to never, ever forage for mushrooms again. I had fallen asleep in front of my own fire and I’d had the strangest dreams. My rear end hurt, and a tentative examination indicated that something had managed to crawl inside my jeans and bite me in the ass while I was sleeping. My dreams had been so weird I’d even managed to incorporate that sensation into them. Kind of like when you’re dreaming that you desperately need to use the facilities, only to wake up and find that your body was sending your dreaming mind a pointed reminder of reality.
Somehow, I was going to have to get up and find my supplies of Advil and coffee. Also a rock. There was a woodpecker out there somewhere that needed a lesson in manners. Possibly a fatal lesson. But this would require that I open my eyes and move my head, and neither of those things seemed like a really good idea.
Decisions, decisions. But eventually I worked up the nerve to roll over and stumble to where I’d put my backpack. Keeping my eyes open just a slit, I rummaged through the top pocket, found the Advil, and took three, dry. I sat down and put my head between my hands for 15 minutes or so, until the Advil had taken the edge off, then I worked myself up to the next item of the list. Which was coffee, because the bird, having accomplished his task, had gone off to make someone else’s morning bright.
An hour or so later, though, I had gotten both breakfast and coffee, struck the unused tent, and was packed and ready to go. It was a late start, but I was pretty much back to normal, except for the knot in my butt. Whatever had gotten at me had really taken a bite. Hopefully I would be able to simply walk it off.
* * * * *
I made it to Story Spring Shelter in Vermont over the course of a few days, taking longer than I had hoped. The knot in my nether region had, as I had hoped, disappeared as I walked, though it took a good two days before I could sit down without noticing it. It did seem to leave the entire area a bit swollen; the seat of my pants was feeling uncharacteristically tight. Still, I was sure that would go down over time as well.
As I had hoped, I was rapidly walking off the extra weight I had put on over the course of the academic year. Not that I brought a scale with me on the trail or anything, but I had already been able to cinch my belt in a full notch! That usually took longer. For all that, though, my pack was not feeling lighter as I hoisted it up onto my shoulders each morning, and that was disappointing. If anything, it felt heavier.
As usual, I stopped after ten or fifteen minutes to make adjustments. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone in a distance hike, you need to tweak things after a bit of walking every morning. A lace is loose, or a strap, or cinch, or whatever. This morning it was my boots, so I tightened up the laces. But they still felt off, no matter how tight the laces got. That was strange; they were well-broken in and had never given me trouble. I had to add a second pair of socks before the fit felt better.
I also noticed that the pants I had bought for the hike were a bit long in the inseam. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it earlier. They hung better when I rolled up the bottom, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Still, it was annoying.
But, once I had made all of my adjustments, I was enthusiastic about getting back on the trail and enjoying yet another day in paradise. I picked up my walking stick and got started.
Paradise for a distance hiker, of course, is a relative thing. Some days paradise looks better than others. In fact, some days paradise can make one wonder whether alternative options for the afterlife are at least worth a bit of investigation, and this was one of those days. The clouds started piling up in the morning and the skies opened up by 11:00 am. The downpour was so continuous and so hard that my poncho proved unequal to its task. I mean, really? It had one job.
The trail became gelatinous, visibility was poor and I was drenched. I clenched my teeth and soldiered on. But I was on a downhill section of the trail and the rain was turning it into a stream. Between the river of a trail, the visibility, and the fact that all four socks that I was wearing were soaked completely through, I was stumbling, sliding, slipping and cursing my way through what appeared to be the forest primeval.
There was no sense stopping for lunch. I would only have succeeded in getting everything in my pack just as drenched as all the rest of me was. But by 2:00 p.m., I could add “hungry” to the list of woes that already included cold, wet, sore and pissed. Alas, I didn’t even get to be pissed in the British sense of the word, I had to be pissed like a Yank. My wet socks were abrading my clammy feet, the upper strap on my pack was chafing my chest, my bedraggled hair was constantly getting in my face and I couldn’t even get a firm grip on my walking stick. The tung oil finish I had rubbed into it was hard and strong; the water just went right off of it. Which was great, but when my hands were slick with water they went right off of it as well.
It was dog shit, in the end, that did me in. Dog shit on already slick granite that I didn’t see because my wet hair was in my eyes and it was farging pouring. My right foot slid across the surface and my left ankle began to twist. I flailed my arm to get my walking stick in a position to be useful, and only succeeded in losing the thing altogether. I was down on my butt and sliding fast.
I stopped sliding after maybe ten feet, when I came fully off of the steep rocks and onto rain saturated earth, which is both a polite and long-winded way of saying “mud.” My jeans were coated. My shirt was coated. My pack. And I found that I had neither the strength nor the will to get up. Or really, to do anything at all other than lie in the mud and contemplate the perversity of life.
After a few minutes of contemplation failed to improve either my situation or my mood, I devoted an inordinate amount of concentration and effort to getting my feet underneath me. I lifted myself back into a standing position, hampered by the fact that my pack, now saturated, felt like it had doubled in weight. Then I had to go searching for my walking stick. I was so distraught, so . . . hurt? Yeah, hurt . . . that I was even momentarily tempted to leave my walking stick to its fate. But I had cut it and finished it myself, probably twenty years before, and we had seen a lot of miles together.
I was dismayed to find that it had gone over the edge and was maybe thirty feet below the trail. Not that big a deal; the slope wasn’t exactly lethal though it was certainly steep. But everything was wet and muddy, I felt shaky and my pack weighed a ton. I debated whether to take it off before going after the stick. There was no dry place to put it down, and I wasn’t all that confident that I’d be able to bring myself to put it back on again once I set it down. I debated this question for a ridiculously long time while the rain carved new estuaries through the fresh mud on my face. Finally I got sufficiently exasperated at myself to just spider crawl down the slope with the pack still on my back. I retrieved the walking stick and started crawling back towards the trail.
My bad luck for the day was not quite complete. A flash of blinding light – people say that, but this truly was blinding – was followed by a tremendous BOOM, as lightning struck some distance about the trail I was aiming for. What distance? I don’t know. Not far enough!
The special effects caused me to lose the stick, my vision and my footing. Again. This slope was steeper than the trail had been, and it was slick and gooey. I started to slide backward and the slide was picking up steam. I hugged the ground and clawed with my hands, but continued to slide as another BOOM sounded above me. I picked up more speed and lots of fresh mud
My slide ended as suddenly as it began. Both sodden boots hit solid ground and my left ankle buckled on impact. I had also caught up with my walking stick. Fortunately, the trail had a switchback in it, and I had slid down to a lower section of the same trail. I suppose I should have been thankful, but I’m not that big-hearted. The universe sucked rocks and I was damned if I’d be thankful that it didn’t suck asteroids too.
Now understand, I’m an experienced hiker, and distance hikes – especially in the Northeast – have days like this. The forecast had been for rain, but nothing like this or I would have just sat it out somewhere. Sometimes, however, the microclimate and the macroclimate don’t really line up. You just have to roll with it and console yourself with the thoughts of the great stories you’ll have someday, when you’re sitting in the faculty lounge and your rotund colleagues are discussing how they spent the summer painting their houses.
But for whatever reason, no amount of mental jujitsu was having the desired effect. I was too damned miserable, and this was my vacation, and Life was Just. Not. Fair!!! I was shocked to discover that I was weeping – bawling, really – and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t understand it. I think the only time I had wept in the last 40 years had been at my father’s funeral.
I must have looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, except that no-one would ever be terrified at the sight of my mud-encrusted body crumpled at the base of the slope like a used crash dummy. Besides, I don’t remember any horror story where the swamp creature is overcome by a crying jag. What was wrong with me?
This would not do. I decided that I had to get off the trail as quickly as possible, get to civilization and find a place where I could dry off, warm up and get some clothes cleaned. I shouldn’t be far from the main road into Stratton, Vermont. If I could find it, maybe I could flag down a ride. So I picked up my troublesome walking stick and started hobbling down the trail. Hobbling, because on top of everything else, my left ankle was starting to throb. Have I mentioned that life was not fair?
* * * * *
I was starting to feel like the guy who got robbed in the good Samaritan story by the time someone pulled over to give me a ride. Car after car, SUV after SUV whizzed past me. If they changed speed at all, it was to accelerate. Nobody, it seems, is eager to give the Creature from the Black Lagoon a ride. Go figure.
But eventually a beat up old red Chevy pickup drove past, slowed down then came back towards me in reverse. I had a bad moment where I thought the driver might have decided to rid the world of a swamp creature, but he managed to get close without taking me out. He lowered the passenger window about a third, looked out at me and said, “Sorry, but the Misses’l kill me dead if I get her seat all muddy. I can get you into town if that’s what you’re aiming for, but I’m afraid you’ll need to ride in the back.”
I just said, “Thanks!,” deciding that this was no time to check on the gift horse’s orthodonture. Climbing into the back, however, proved surprisingly difficult. I couldn’t get up with my pack on, so I took it off and hoisted it over, but when I tried to grab the sides and pull myself up, I couldn’t do it. I was too tired.
My savior got out, walked to the back and lowered the tailgate. “Can you make it?” he asked, kindly enough. I was mortified, but I had no choice. I hopped up and got my butt on the tailgate, then swung myself over. He closed up, gave me a look and said, “You gonna be alright?” I nodded, hoping I was right.
The final indignity was knowing that he could get in trouble for having a passenger in the bed of the truck, so I would need to stay down. I found myself thinking, “in my day, everyone rode in the back of pickup trucks!” While this was technically true, I had promised myself that I would never say “in my day,” and here I’d gone and done it.
But, it was at least no longer raining, and if that did nothing for the state of my clothes, it did at least mean that I could operate my phone. So I found listings for motels in Stratton and managed to book something online. I hate Siri, but that doesn’t mean I hate the internet. It’s the greatest thing for introverts since solitary confinement.
Stratton is a company town. The municipality consists of just a couple hundred people, and if they don’t all work at the Stratton Mountain Ski resort, those that don’t know plenty that do. So I got dropped off at “Stratton Village,” which is a quaint, picturesque, and wholly-owned subsidiary of the resort. I had a bit of a hike to get to my motel, but nothing was all that far. I thanked my driver profusely, offered to buy him either a beer or a tank of gas, and was politely declined on both counts. “I don’t wanna be late, or the misses’l skin me,” he said. It might even have been true.
The motel should have been an easy ten minute walk from the ersatz “village;” it took me an excruciating 20. I could feel the blisters forming and popping on my heels; the straps of the pack were digging into my shoulders, the chest strap was rubbing me so raw that I unclipped it, and my sodden underwear was chafing my thighs. By the time I got to the motel, I was ready to drop.
I went to the motel office to pick up the key, worried that they’d take one look at me and whistle up some dogs. I shouldn’t have worried quite so much. The guy behind the desk wasn’t the owner and rather obviously wasn’t much concerned with appearances. He removed the cigarette that was dripping ash down his t-shirt just long enough to say, “if we gotta spend extra cleanin’ your room, it’s gonna cost you some.” He looked me over as if attempting to determine whether I was infested with something, before adding, “no pets.”
I got to the room, full of good intentions about ensuring that I wouldn’t track mud everywhere. But when I closed the door behind me, I said, “Ah, hell with it.” I dropped my pack and stripped naked, starting with my now detested boots, then hobbled to the bathroom bare-assed naked and went straight into the shower.
I probably didn’t do anything for fifteen minutes other than stand under the showerhead and watch hot water sluice a mountain of grime from my hair and my skin. It felt heavenly. Then I stirred just enough to soap up and take stock. I had a nasty rash on the inside of both thighs, blisters on both heels and more on a few toes, and my nipples were swollen and sore from the chest strap. My left ankle looked a bit puffy as well, though the right foot and ankle both looked small. Probably the effect of having been encased in sopping wet cloth for hours – everything looked shrunken. Hell, the same could be said for my reproductive organ, and for a similar reason. I decided I needed to get under covers once I was out of the bathroom and just sleep for a few hours to recover.
* * * * *
I only intended on a nap, but I slept through dinner and straight through the night. By the time I woke up, sevenish, I was ravenous and desperately needed to pee. While in the bathroom taking care of the latter problem, I looked in the mirror to see whether I needed another shower before going in search of food. Sadly, I had the worst case of bedhead I had ever seen. And, as a college professor, that was a subject in which I had a deep reservoir of observational experience. But I hadn’t really washed it yesterday; I had just rinsed out mud with hot water and then gone to bed with it damp. It was clumped, matted, none-to-clean, and pointed every which way. So I turned on the hot, stepped back into the shower and got to work.
The tangles felt fierce. I don’t wear my hair especially long, so I don’t normally have to struggle with it. Maybe I tugged a bit hard, but my hands came away with two mammoth fistfulls of hair. I shouted my surprise, sounding a bit squeaky. Understandably so: my hair may be iron gray and coarse, but I’ve got a full head of it – a fact of which I was very secretly a bit proud. Even some of my younger, better-looking colleagues couldn’t say as much. I dropped the defecting locks and reached up to make a gingerly exploration of the damage. I could tell without looking that it was extensive.
I tried to untangle the rest with the utmost care, but it was not cooperating. More hair was coming loose. I rinsed off and stepped out of the shower. The mirror was completely fogged, which was a blessing. I grabbed a towel and started drying off my hair, but the method I had used for six decades of life betrayed me utterly. The hair developed a greater attachment to the water from the shower than it had to my scalp. When I took the towel off my head, hair went everywhere. Mostly on me, of course, giving me the appearance of a geriatric ape. I dropped the towel and raised my hands for another exploration. All I could feel was a light stubble. Everywhere!
This could not be happening. I reached down, got the towel, and squeegeed off a section of the mirror. It was as bad as I could have imagined. The only good news, I guess, was that I wasn’t bald. My whole head seemed to be covered with five-o’clock shadow. But that’s all there was. Lots of fine stubble.
There are plenty of men who look good bald, though I doubt I would be one of them. But I doubt anyone looks good with a head of stubble. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I found myself tearing up. Standing bare-assed naked in the middle of the bathroom in a cheap motel, all of my hair plastering my wet body and my head looking like day two of a horticultural experiment, weeping?
No! I would not have it! I angrily grabbed a fresh towel and dried off the rest of me, getting rid of everything I had shed in the process. The bathroom was now a disaster area, but that would just have to wait. I stomped into the main room and went to see what I might be able to salvage from my pack that I could wear for now. It was impossible to open the thing up without getting myself dirty all over again, and my bad luck wasn’t even done. All the clothes in the pack were too damp to wear, though at least they weren’t muddy. I would need to air dry some things before I could go anywhere.
This was not the sort of motel that provided bathrobes for guests. I had absolutely nothing to wear. I couldn’t even wrap myself in a towel, since I had used up my allotted two. But I was not, not, not going to give in to my strong urge to crawl back under the covers and curl into the fetal position. Not!
“Okay, James,” I said to myself. “You need a plan. Before you can do anything about your other problems, you’ve got to have clothes you can wear.” So I pulled the clean, damp items out of the pack and hung them in the closet.
I spent the next half hour transferring mud from my pack, my poncho, my stuff-bags, and yesterday’s clothes to the walls and basin of the shower enclosure, and fifteen minutes after that coaxing all that mud to find its way into the shower drain. I used a washcloth to collect all of the hair that seemed to be everywhere, and sent it down the drain too. But now I was once again wet, and all I had to dry myself was a small hand towel. I sighed and got to work.
Which is when I discovered that, at some point in my drying and washing and scrubbing and rinsing, my body hair must have joined the hair on my head. I had no hair on my arms, under my arms, on my chest, my legs . . . not even between my legs! Without its wiry jungle for cover, my poor guy was looking small and forlorn.
That was it. I’d gritted my teeth, I’d soldiered on, been as stoic as Pliny the Elder and Junior combined, and what had it gotten me? Indignity! I was frustrated, and mad, and hungry, and scared. I decided that reality could go screw itself. I buried myself under the covers and curled into a ball of pure misery.
Unfortunately I was not sleepy, so my retreat did not provide the solace of oblivion. My mind kept working, after a distressed fashion. The only thing I’d ever heard of that could cause rapid hair loss was radiation poisoning. I couldn’t imagine where that might have happened. I’m no scientist, but even I knew that lightning isn’t radioactive. My spider bite? Now that would be just my luck. Peter Parker and I get bit by radioactive spiders; he gets ripped and I look like I volunteered for a primitive delousing.
I wasn’t in any physical pain – well, nothing but scrapes and rashes and twists and such – so it made no sense to go to any urgent care facility, much less the ER. I needed to go see my own doctor, back home. The guy who was always giving me unwelcome health and diet suggestions. Dammit.
But it clearly made no sense to try to keep marching up the trail when there was something this unusual going on with my body. With luck, I would be able to come back in a few days and pick up my hike where I had left off. I was only about an hour and a half from home by car, but of course I didn’t have a car. I was going to need to arrange something.
Almost three hours later, the clothes that had been in my pack were just barely dry enough to wear. Hanging damp appeared to have stretched everything, so I had to put a cuff in both my pants and my shirt. I had already consumed my entire supply of energy bars, but I was going to need some real food. A laundromat would have been nice, but since I was going to head home briefly I could just dump everything in the pack as is and worry about it later.
I needed my ace bandage for my weak ankle or I would have wrapped it around my abraded chest. The slightly damp shirt was only going to make things worse, so I decided to put regular bandaids over each of my nipples before donning my straight, but still damp, apparel. I picked up my walking stick and headed into “town.”
The first stop was a gas station, where I was able to purchase a baseball cap. My selection was limited to a Harley Davidson cap or blue cap with a creature that looked like a skunk wearing a turtleneck, which said “Go Badgers.” I went with the badger, even if it DID look like a skunk. The young woman behind the counter with the pierced nostril and lavender hair took one look at me and said, “‘Locks for Love,’ amirite? That’s so lit!” My blank look did not penetrate, because she went on to say that she’d never seen anyone go so far as to shave their eyebrows off as well.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“That’s committed,” she said approvingly. Then she told me it was “fire” that I was supporting the Badgers. “Does your daughter go there?,” she asked, ringing up my purchase.
“What?” I said again. She just giggled at me. I was starting to think that a Distinguished Professor of Linguistics ought to be able to come up with something more penetrating, more insightful, or at very least more likely to generate an informative response from others. Not that my use of “what” as an interrogative pronoun was in any way improper, of course. I was just surrounded by idiots.
Based on her prior statement, I had her ring up a pair of sunglasses too. I don’t normally wear sunglasses; it forces you to choose whether you want the world to look blue or orange and I wasn’t wild about either. But it was a small price to pay for fewer comments about my present appearance by well-meaning harbingers of the supposedly bright future my dean was always gushing about. “Fucking future,” I grumbled as I hit the streat.
Stratton in summer is a shadow of its winter glory, and its winter glory ain’t any great shakes. But I was able to find a place that served pub food and ordered myself a burger and fries. Not on my normal diet, you understand, but I was feeling put upon by the universe and decided that some recompense was surely due. I kept my cap and sunglasses on, but my young waiter still felt the need to throw me a goofy grin and say, “Hey, Go Badgers. Good for you!” Maybe, I thought with a mental snarl, people would leave me alone if I wore a hockey mask instead.
Still, I managed to get a real meal. Thus fortified, I returned to my hotel room, all of my aches, pains and indignities vying for my attention. Some internet searching revealed that, while it is relatively easy to get from Stratton to Northampton by car, when it came to public transit, “you can’t get there from here.” I was either going to have to spend half a day going away from where I wanted to go before heading back, pay a cabbie or Uber for an hour-and-a-half trip, or . . . call a friend.
Gulp. Now that was a thought that would sober a lush. Given my current appearance, I didn’t want anyone to see me. But I certainly didn’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars just to get home. I hemmed. I hawed. I hemmed and hawed and hawed and hemmed. Then I told myself to stop being such a baby and called my best friend.
“Woah, baby!” she exclaimed, answering the phone. “Aren’t you supposed to be ‘off the grid forever and ha ha ha to all you suckers?’”
“Hey, Janet,” I said wanly. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Paintin’ the house, as usual. Now come on. You didn’t call to ask how my summer’s goin’. What’s up? You should be in middle Vermont by now.”
I was surprised she had my itinerary committed to memory. “I know, I know,” I said. “And I’m not far off where I’m supposed to be. But . . . something’s come up.”
Janet was suddenly all business. “Are you all right, James?”
“I got caught out in a bad storm yesterday and had to come into Stratton to dry off and warm up,” I said. “But when I got up this morning and tried to wash my hair, it started to fall out.”
“Umm . . . you’re calling me because you’re startin’ to go bald?,” she asked. “You’ve been pretty lucky, keepin’ a full head of hair past your sixtieth birthday, you know.”
“I don’t mean, ‘I lost some hair.’ I mean, all my hair came out. All of it,” I answered. I sounded a bit hysterical, even to myself.
“You’re serious?” she asked. “All of it? I’ve never heard anything like it. Have you talked to a doctor?”
“I figured I’d better see Quibble back home,” I responded, referring to Doctor Quentin Bell, my local quack.
“Huh,” she said. “Well . . . he’s probably better than whoever you’re gonna find pushin’ pills in East Buttfuck, Vermont. Not that that’s saying much. You need a ride back here?”
I was grateful beyond words. “If you can swing it, I’d really appreciate it, Janet,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be home.”
“Eh, I always leave myself a couple weeks to relax after closing the books on the year before I head out on any adventures, and I’m not relaxed yet. Where should I pick you up?”
I gave her the name of my motel and she said she’d be on the road within a half an hour. I don’t have many friends, but the ones I have are keepers. I spent the time working to make the room less of a wreck. I also put in a call to Quibble’s office and got a machine. Of course. I asked for a call back.
Janet arrived just a bit after 5:00 and wasted no time tossing my sodden pack and gear into the back of her car and getting us on the road. I kept my new hat and dark glasses firmly on, and she gave me only one lengthy appraising look before piling me into the passenger seat of her car.
“All right, James,” she said. “So what happened? You get lost in a missile silo or something?”
“Nothing I can think of,” I said. “I would have said it was a pretty normal start to the hike, up until about five nights ago. I think I did a bad job mushrooming, because something I put in my stew sure knocked me for a loop. I fell asleep in front of the fire and had super weird dreams about space aliens and . . . .” My voice petered out. I had a suddenly vivid recollection that, in my dream, the space aliens had been extremely interested in the sort of stuff you would find in a missile silo – weapons-grade uranium.
Janet did not wait for me to work my way back from that particular mental culdesac. “Okay,” she said, “you dreamed about space aliens. Then what?”
“Well,” I said, sounding a bit shaky, “I woke up, and it was daytime, and I’d never gotten back to my tent. Something had bit me in the rear end and it was sore, and my head hurt. But I took some Advil and was able to keep going. The bite hurt for a couple days, but it got better. Then I had the brush with the storm yesterday, and I got up this morning and this happened.” I pointed to my head.
“You suddenly had an uncontrollable urge to show your support for the largest girl’s high school in Vermont?” she asked.
“What?” I said. “No! I suddenly lost all my hair!”
“Sorry, James,” she said, “I couldn’t resist. But . . . Nothing else unusual happened?” I shook my head. We talked a bit more, but our conversation kind of petered out. I was tired, grumpy and puzzled; Janet’s mind was clearly worrying at the puzzle that my strange experience presented.
When we were getting close to Northampton, she pressed a button on her steering column and said, “Call Osaka.” I looked an inquiry at her and she said, “James, you need food and we need to give some thought to what’s happened. I think there’s more here than some bad mushrooms. Let’s get some take-out and we can eat it at my place. I’m not actually painting, just at the moment.”
Before I could respond, her car phone connected to the Osaka Japanese Restaurant and she ordered some sushi and sashimi to go. We swung by the restaurant. I didn’t really want to be seen at the moment, especially where anyone from the college might be present, so Janet went in and picked up the order. We drove back to her place.
I had been over to Janet’s house before. I don’t know; maybe half a dozen times over the many years we worked together. We were very firmly “just friends,” and we didn’t need the kind of gossip that so easily starts in small campuses. I had enormous respect for her, but it would never in a thousand years have occurred to me to presume upon our long friendship with any sort of romantic entanglement. I am a scholar first, a teacher second, a colleague third. Anything else is so far behind that it didn’t count.
It was still light when we got to her place, a modest Cape Cod style home on the edge of town. Inside, she set the bag of sushi on the dining room table and went to get plates, utensils and wine while I went to make myself (marginally) more presentable. When I got out of the restroom, she said, “Okay, let me see how bad bad really is.” I didn’t really want to, but it would be ridiculous to sit at her table and share a meal while I was wearing a baseball cap and shades. With a sigh, I took them off.
Surprisingly, she didn’t just look and giggle, or sound surprised. Instead, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully and she asked me to come closer to the light. She got up very close and gave my stubble a narrow inspection, putting her readers on for a better look. Finally she nodded her head and said, “Okay, that’s interesting. Let’s have a bite and we can talk about it.”
Her behavior was pretty mystifying to me, but I was again extremely hungry and I’m a big sushi fan. I snapped my chopsticks in two, mixed some wasabi and soy sauce in one of the small bowls Janet had set out, and grabbed a piece of raw tuna. I washed that down with a swallow of a perky Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and felt better than I had in a week.
Janet had not yet moved to grab a piece of sushi for herself, however. She just sat looking at me thoughtfully, which was pretty worrisome. Finally I said, “Okay, I know. It looks weird. What’s to talk about?”
“I’m thinkin’,” she said. “‘Weird’ doesn’t begin to cover it. You may be too close to this to have noticed. But . . . you are very definitely shorter than you were two weeks ago. And the stubble on your head isn’t gray. It's not even black, like it used to be. It’s gold.”
I gaped at her and said, understandably enough, “What?!”
She speared a piece of sushi, dunked it in my dipping sauce, and said, “Mushrooms don’t do that, James. Spiders don’t do that. So . . . .” She popped the sushi in her mouth before asking, “s’pose you tell me about those crazy space aliens of yours?”
. . . . To be continued. I reckon
Maximum Warp
Chapter 3: Strange New Worlds
So, I’d lost all of my hair: top of the head stuff, body hair and pubic hair. Hell, I’d even lost my eyebrows. And my best friend Janet wanted me to talk about my dreams? What the hell! “You can’t be serious,” I sputtered.
“Try me,” she responded, spearing another piece of sushi. She was unimpressed with my look of professorial stupefaction and sheer dumbfoundedness. Admittedly, it works better on undergraduates than it does on grad students, and other full professors – like Janet – are often immune altogether.
She said, extremely calmly, “Remember what Sherlock Holmes would say.”
“Elementary?” I asked, stupidly.
“No, the other thing,” she responded. “‘When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ So, we know spiders and mushrooms don’t cause people to get shorter, or lose all their hair, much less grow all new hair in a different color. Nothing else interesting happened to you, other than getting caught out in a thunderstorm like a Cub Scout. So what does that leave?”
“I thought your specialty was 19th Century American literature,” I grumbled. Mostly I was just buying time while I thought about what she had said.
In any event, she waved my objection away. “I read BritLit for shits and giggles. There’s some great stuff there. You should check out that Shakespeare guy. Really top notch.”
I couldn’t help it; I giggled.
“Okay,” I said. “But when I tell you about my space alien dream, I think you’ll agree that it was probably the residue of psilocybin mushrooms.”
“Like I said before,” she responded, “Try me.”
So I did. For all it was crazy, it was vivid, and I remembered even more detail as I started to relate it.
Throughout my recitation, she just continued to grab pieces of sushi, dip them, and chew them thoughtfully. She made no sound and asked no questions until I concluded.
When I had, I picked up my chopsticks and tried to catch up while she did her impersonation of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
“Welllll,’ she finally said, drawing out the syllable, “I can certainly see why you were inclined towards the magic mushroom explanation. I mean, what with the bad dialogue from 60s and 70s TV, the Cronkite suit and Mary Tyler Moore shoes, the Starship Enterprise and weapons-grade uranium. But – no offense, James – I don’t think your brain could generate that much camp, even dead asleep and on psychotropic drugs.”
I found myself perversely offended. “Are you saying I lack imagination?” I asked indignantly.
“Ahhhh,” she said cautiously, “James, you are without a doubt the most linear thinker I know. It’s actually difficult to argue with you, because your thinking is always so clear and your lines of logic are always so easy to follow. But the flip side, dear man . . . .”
“Is that I’m boring?” I asked.
“That’s far too strong a word,” she responded soothingly. “And too negative as well. Try ‘dependable,’ ‘grounded,’ ‘sensible’ . . . .”
“Spare me the entire thesaurus,” I suggested dryly. “I get the picture.” I drummed my fingers on the table while Janet sat, looking a bit embarrassed. I wanted to be annoyed, but I couldn’t really manage it. Truth is, she was right. I didn’t have much use for flights of fancy. That made me very inclined to dismiss my dream, of course. But it hadn’t occurred to me that it might also decrease the likelihood that my mind would have generated such a pile of nonsense in the first place. It’s true that most dreams I was ever able to recall were pretty prosaic. In my dreams, a cigar is always just a cigar.
Finally I said, “Oh, come on, Janet. Do you really think that what happened to me was caused by space aliens?”
She shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m not ready to dismiss the possibility out of hand. When are you seeing the doctor?”
“I haven’t heard back from Quibble’s office,” I said. “But if I don’t see him tomorrow, it’s going to have to be next week. No way he's open over the weekend.”
She nodded and said, with a sentiment I thoroughly shared, “Doctors!” She thought a few more minutes. “Look, I’ll run you home now. If you want, I can take you out to the Berkshires to pick up your car on Saturday; I’ve got some commitments tomorrow. Why don’t you sleep on it, and keep monitoring to see whether anything else happens to you. I mean, if you got a shot that’s supposed to make you young and good-looking, it’s got a ways to go yet.”
The day’s indignities, it seems, were far from complete. I buried my head in my hands.
“I’m sorry, James,” she said contritely. “That didn’t come out very well, did it? But . . . just in case it is space aliens, what’s ‘young’ in this context? Thirty? Six? Or, for that matter, what’s ‘good-looking?’”
I thought about that for a minute, with my head still buried in my hands. Then I wished I hadn’t. “Oh, Lordy,” I said, raising my head. “I didn’t really say anything about how young 'young' ought to be! For ‘good-looking,’ I suggested that they check out People Magazine. They had a tap into the internet while they were here.”
Janet was looking at me funny. I mean, appalled funny, not funny funny. Not like she was about to laugh. Not at all.
“What?” I asked.
“James,” she said carefully, “most of the people who people People are . . . ahh . . . .”
This was very unlike Janet. “Young, certainly” I finished. “And also good-looking. Right?”
“Sure, sure. Of course. But also . . . ah. Girls. Women. Female . . . people. I mean, they do have pictures of men too. But it’s gotta be, three, four to one. You know that, right?”
I was thunderstruck. “No, I didn’t know that! Why would I know that?” I asked. “I don’t actually open People Magazine, for God’s sake!”
“Not even for the articles?” she asked, innocently.
“No,” I said with more force than the inquiry demanded. “I just see it on the rack at the supermarket. I knew it had lots of pictures of Hollywood types. And British royals.”
“British royals?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You mean, like Prince Charles? Prince William?”
“Uhh . . . . I don’t remember seeing them, specifically,” I said a bit lamely.
“No?” she asked, clearly determined to make her point. “Which British Royals do you recall seeing? Specifically?”
“Ah. Kate. And Meghan. Diana, for some reason, even though she’s been gone for decades . . . .”
“Uh huh,” she said.
I just looked at her. “They wouldn’t change my gender though, would they? I mean, why go to all the trouble? Men can be young and good looking too!”
“Of course they can,” she responded. “But, aliens might not understand that it’s a big deal. I mean, if they’re rearranging your whole DNA, what’s a chromosome here or there? You might have been more specific.”
“But . . . I just thought they were going to find a good looking young person, not turn me into a good-looking young person!” I protested.
“You didn’t think it was important to suggest a specific gender for this hypothetical good looking young person they were going to pick up?” she challenged.
“Hire,” I said firmly. “And no, I didn’t. A woman is just as capable of being a go-between to a new species as a man. Maybe more . . . .” I stopped myself from finishing the sentence, but the blood drained from my face.
Janet looked at me with real compassion in her eyes.
Which, of course, made me far more terrified than I had been before. Janet was a wonderful woman with a razor-sharp wit and a virtuoso's gift for repartee. If she was feeling sorry for me – sorry enough not to deliver the coup de grâce – I must be in very deep shit indeed.
“Let me take you home now, James,” she said kindly. “Like I said. Sleep on it. Take some measurements. See if you notice any changes. And let me know about Saturday, okay?”
I nodded silently.
When we got back to my condo, she parked the car and helped me get my gear up the stairs and into my unit. When we got inside, she looked around and asked me for a pencil. When I got her one, she grabbed a book, then had me take off my boots and socks and stand against the door frame into the guest bathroom. “Stand up straight now,” she ordered. Then she put the book on my head and made a mark on the molding. “Here you go; that’s your height as of 9:30 tonight. As good a place to start as any.”
I walked her to the door, where she surprisingly turned and gave me a hug. I don’t think we had ever hugged each other. But I found myself returning the hug with an urgency I had never felt in my life.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’m here for you.”
That’s when I knew I was screwed. Exactly how screwed and in what specific way . . . those were just details. Things to add to my obituary, as it were.
* * * * *
I collapsed into bed and had prosaically awful dreams which featured variations on me dying. Car crash. Drowning. Falling out of an airplane. Subtle, it was not. I got up around seven and grimly marched into the bathroom, determined to have as normal a morning as circumstances would allow.
The first thing you see in my bathroom is yourself, like it or not, since the sink and the mirror are right across from the door. I was shocked to discover that yesterday’s stubble had already given way to something that looked a bit like a military haircut, or even something that might push up against Steinbrenner’s edicts for guys who want to play for the New York Yankees. And Janet was right – it was a nimbus of spun gold. I reached up and touched it – a gentle and disbelieving motion. It didn’t even feel like my hair. It was silky soft and fine; it would probably take four of these gold hairs to approach the thickness of one of the gray hairs that had fallen out just a day ago. But there seemed to be a lot of them.
My eyebrows were growing in again too, or at least there were some hairs there. A narrower band so far. Overall, the hair change made me look significantly younger. Maybe more like mid-forties than sixty. Or, was it just the hair?
I looked at my image more closely. My skin looked better too. Tighter. Maybe not quite as weather-scoured. I looked at the back of my hands – the place it’s hardest to hide the changes of time. And, sure enough . . . the age spots which had started to appear in the last few years were flat-out gone, and my veins were not quite as prominent.
I found myself feeling a bit light-headed. To avoid passing out, I stumbled over to the porcelain throne, sat and put my head down. Janet was right. I was getting younger, my hair was changing color and growing ridiculously fast, and those changes simply could not be ascribed to known causes. But really? Corny alien smugglers?
I fished out the family jewelry and did my business. I examined them with more care than I had in years. Were they smaller, or was I imagining things? Everything seemed to be working properly . . . .
I decided I wasn’t going to think about that. I stripped, got in my shower, and started soaping up. Remarkably, my rashes appeared to be completely healed. Like they had never happened. My ankles now matched – the left was no longer swollen. Although the hair on my head was growing back quickly, I saw no sign of any other hair returning.
As the soap glided over one of my nipples, I got something like an electric shock. That was certainly weird. I decided not to think about that either.
I dried off and went to get dressed. Janet was right as far as height was concerned as well. It wasn’t just an issue with the clothes I had taken with me on the hike; every pair of pants I owned was too long. Not by all that much, but it was significant. The bottoms almost touched the ground in back when I put on a pair of sneakers. And the sneakers were loose too. I was, very definitely, shrinking.
That, too, supported Janet’s hypothesis, although it wasn’t all that significant to the gender question. Half the actors in Hollywood weren't exactly tall – even such classic heartthrobs as Paul Newman and Robert Redford had only been 5’ 10.” I didn’t know as much about the current crew, of course. But I was – or had been – 6’3.” I had a few inches to spare, if I was being turned into whatever was currently fashionable in People Magazine. Of course, shrinking was equally, if not more, consistent with the other possibility. Resolutely, I put that from my mind.
I called Quibble’s office at nine and got a machine. Again. So I spent the morning doing laundry, cleaning all my hiking gear, and worrying.
When I still hadn’t heard from the Quack’s office by one o’clock, I did a deep dive in my closet and located a pair of sweatpants I hadn’t worn in years. They fit well enough. Then I put on a sweatshirt, a pair of sandals and my new cap (“Go Badgers”). I grabbed my keys and got all the way to the garage area before I remembered that my car was in the Berkshires. Dammit. I had nothing in the condo to eat, since I had cleaned it out for the summer.
I trudged back to my unit and got my phone. “Hey Siri – call Pizza Amore.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t get that!,” she-it responded chirpily.
“‘You’ll love it, James,’ they all said,” I grumbled. “‘It just takes a while to train it,’ they said. Bastards. Why do they torture me?”
“I can’t answer that, Jim!,” she-it said, without any apparent regret.
“Pizza Amore! Call Pizza Amore!” I shouted.
Unperturbed, Siri responded, “Would you like me to call Amore Pizza at 370 West 58th Street, New York, New York?” I ground my teeth in frustration. After a moment, she-it piped in with, “I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t get that!”
“Do I look like I’m in New York?” I demanded.
“I couldn’t say,” she-it responded.
“Why Not? Aren’t you connected to the frickin’ GPS?” I was getting more frustrated the longer we pretended to converse. Siri’s response, predictably unhelpful, caused me to give up. “Cancel,” I ground out.
“Would you like me to cancel?”
I screamed an affirmative, and she-it said, “canceling order.”
“Hey James,” called my neighbor Rodney Dent. “Thought you were gone for the summer. You got Siri all trained up yet?” It occurred to me that my neighbors had witnessed too many of my efforts to communicate with the Borg.
I wanted to cheerfully flip Rodney off, but I could use his help. So I put on a smile instead. “Hey Rodney! I had to pop down for a couple days to deal with something. But my car’s stuck in the Berkshires. Any chance I could borrow yours for a quick run to the store?”
“Sure,” he said easily. He pulled a set of keys from his front pocket and tossed them to me. Then his eyes popped open and he said, “Wow!! Dude – You’re dyeing your hair? You? I think I may be witnessing the end of days!!!”
The urge to flip Rodney off was growing stronger by the minute, but . . . I did need his car. “It’s kind of a prank. Certainly nothing I’ll keep when classes start!”
“You better not,” he laughed. “You’d have co-eds falling all over you!”
“You know no-one uses that word anymore, right?” I growled.
“Easy, man! Just jokin,’ just jokin,’” he said. “You’re the expert on words. I’m just an accountant!”
“How could I ever forget, what with your sparkling wit?” I thought as I drove off. But I managed – just barely – to keep the thought from passing my lips.
Two hours later, I was back in my condo having some late lunch, with enough food in my fridge and pantry to last a few days. When I was done, I gave Janet a call to take her up on her offer to drive me out to get my car.
“Sure thing, James,” she said. “What time should I pick you up?”
“Whatever time causes you the least inconvenience,” I said. “I’ve got no plans for the day, as you might imagine.”
“Let’s go with 9:00,” she said. “You hear back from Quibble yet?”
“I haven’t even talked to a real person yet,” I said. “Nothing new there.”
“Anythin’ new anywhere else?” she asked.
“Ummm,” I responded. “My hair’s growing back pretty quickly. Other than that, nothing I’ve noticed.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I look forward to seein’ how you look with golden hair. I can’t picture it. See you tomorrow!”
We ended the call and I glowered at the world. Well, I was indoors; all I could see of the world was the inside of my condo, so I glowered at that. What had I been thinking, going off for months leaving it looking so shabby? I’d tidied it, but . . . man. It could use a good cleaning. I decided that would take my mind off of other topics, so I got my cleaning supplies out and went to work.
* * * * *
The alarm went off at 7:00. I lay in bed a few more minutes, reluctant to face the mirror. But the body has demands of its own, so eventually I hauled myself out of bed and opened the door to the bathroom, filled with trepidation.
My hair was almost as long as it had been two days ago, but it was positively bursting with golden vitality. My eyebrows were restored, but they were thin – nothing like my formerly formidable set that had intimidated generations of undergrads. How would I impress anyone with these?
I sighed heavily and trudged over to the pot to do my morning’s business. The body was more than willing, but the plumbing . . . Shit! the plumbing was GONE! I choked out a strangled-sounding “Noooooo!!!!!!” before the world went black.
The first thing that registered, as I slowly regained consciousness, was the cold of the bathroom’s smooth ceramic tile against one cheek. I blinked to clear my vision, and found that I had collapsed on the floor with my pajama bottoms around my ankles. Charming.
I maneuvered myself into a sitting position, kicking off the pajamas in the process, and leaned my back against the vanity. Inexorably, my eyes were drawn downward. There was no visible evidence of either bat or balls. With deep dread, I brought my right hand over to figure out whether they were, somehow, just playing hide-and-seek. I whispered, “Alle, alle auch sind frei.”
No joy.
If they were hiding, they had used a very convenient slit that had appeared at the base of my pubis to make their escape. A slit that had its own lips – lips which, I discovered, were absurdly sensitive to the touch. I groaned.
I brought my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs and put my head down. Okay. It was frickin’ clueless space aliens after all. And, they had decided to make me female. How much worse could this get? That wasn’t a rhetorical question, either. I’d better prepare myself for future unpleasant surprises, or I'm going to be spending a lot of time admiring the hexagonal tiles on the floor of my bathroom.
The most obvious drum major for my personal parade of horribles was the possibility that the aliens would interpret “young” in an aggressive way. I would be useless to them as a five-year-old, but they might not know that. I’d be useless to myself as well, but they wouldn’t care.
A distant second was the possibility that they might completely screw up on the physical side. Just for example, my component parts might be perfectly fine, but their proportions might be all wrong. They were aliens and had no concepts of human aesthetics. Quite possibly no concept of aesthetics at all. But . . . ugly wasn’t the end of the world. No one had ever called me good-looking. Not that I’m bitter.
Contemplating my totally rearranged future, I discovered, was not resolving my most pressing issue. Pressing, that is, in the most literal sense.
I still needed to pee.
I glared at the toilet, as if all of this was somehow its fault. Then I sighed and got myself to my feet, moving like a man who is facing the executioner. I looked down at the bowl and cursed. That didn’t help either; I didn’t even feel better. Then I snarled something truly vile, dropped the underseat like a guillotine, then turned around and sat down with a decisive thud. “Fine,” I thought. “Now what?”
It honestly took me a bit to figure out that I needed to spread my legs apart and try to relax the urethral sphincters in order to get some action going. Relaxing, it turns out, is hard when you are as tightly wound as I am. It took time, and my bladder sent numerous signals of its growing impatience with my ineptitude. But eventually the flow started. And damn, did that feel weird.
When it finally "petered" out – not with a bang, but a whimper – I faced the next hurdle. I couldn’t exactly wag the area dry, now could I? I thought it through and decided I’d better dry the area off anyways. Damp was never pleasant, and hygiene is important. Should I use a towel? Surely women didn’t do that. There would be no end of messy towels everywhere if they did. Someone would have noticed, and said something.
Okay, it’s obvious. But it wasn’t intuitive to me, anyway. I’ve never actually lived with a woman. Not even in the same house, at least since my mother passed away when I was ten. I had to think a minute before it dawned on me that women had an additional use for toilet paper. I groaned again. I know nothing about being a woman. Less than nothing!
How was I going to do this? How could I do this? I felt tears welling up, blurring my vision, and a lump rising in my throat.
But I steeled myself against my panic. I closed my eyes tight to stifle the tears. I clenched my teeth. “Enough, old man!! You are an adult, for the love of God. A scholar. You fucking live to learn. You didn’t want to learn this? Fine. Too bad. You need to. Stop wallowing, get off your ass, and start figuring out this strange new world.”
It was a turning point, of sorts. I’d gotten old and ill-tempered. I’d allowed myself to develop bad grumbly habits, bitching and moaning as the world started to pass me by. Well, it looked like the world wasn’t quite done with me after all. It was time to revive the habits of mind that had allowed me, in earlier years, to face the world as it was and delve into its secrets. I had a very strong sense that I would need that mindset again, and soon.
I got up, went into the shower, and got cracking. This time, when contact with my nipples sent shock waves to my brain, I slowed down and repeated the experiment. Yes, my nipples were definitely sensitive as all hell. Sensitive, as it happened, in an extremely pleasant way. Okay. Good to know. File that piece of information away. Another data point.
By the time Janet arrived at 9:00, I was reasonably calm. I was going to get through this, somehow, now grimly determined to find a way. I asked Janet to come in, which surprised her. She had assumed that we would hit the road right away. I suggested we have coffee and croissants before we got underway.
She took a bite of her croissant. “Oooh, you got these from the Hungry Ghost, didn’t you?”
I confirmed it.
“Well, I certainly appreciate the effort, James. But you didn’t need to go to the trouble. I don’t need to be bribed, ya know!”
I smiled. “No, I know that. But . . . you’ve been a big help, and I’m afraid this weird journey of mine is just starting. I thought it was the least I could do.”
She gave me a thoughtful look and said, “Okay, so . . . it sounds like you are moving towards the crazy alien hypothesis after all. Did all of that fluff on your head convince you?”
My hair was pretty striking, especially to anyone who had ever known me before. But I shook my head and took a gulp of coffee. Here goes nothing!
“No, I was still in full denial until this morning. But . . . there’s no doubt at this point. There’s no other possible explanation. It’s not just the hair, you see. I’m definitely becoming female. The . . . ah . . . most important bits rearranged themselves overnight.”
She dropped her croissant on the table. “Holy macaroni, you’ve got lady parts?” Then she blushed like a tomato.
I chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, I’ve got lady parts. I’m damned if I know what to do with them, but I’m just gonna have to work on figuring all of that out. Half of the species has found a way; I suppose I can too.”
She stared at me blankly, then a chuckle bubbled up, gurgled into a stream, and developed into a full-blown river of merriment. It was funny just to watch her, and before long I was joining her in peals of laughter, though mine might have had a touch of hysteria mixed in. Still, I was very glad I had gotten up early enough to get through the worst of my emotional reaction well before Janet arrived. I could still laugh – even at my own predicament.
When we finally both subsided, she reached over with both hands and grabbed one of mine. “You’re taking this very well. Better than I ever could have imagined. But it’s . . . it’s gonna be hard, James. Harder than I think you can imagine, right now. You will need help, and . . . And I’m happy to help any way I can. I want you to know that I’m here for you, okay?”
I had gotten through the morning’s shocks, had even managed to steel myself enough to give Janet my secret, knowing that her ribald wit would be unable to resist some sharp sallies. But this, apparently . . . I had no defense against this. Against kindness. I teared up, overwhelmed with emotion, and my personal dam burst like it had been hit by a missile. “Thh-thh-thanks, J-ja-anet,” I got out between sobs.
What was worse, she did not look alarmed. She looked understanding. She got up, came ‘round the table and stooped over to give me a hug. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “It’s okay. You’re gonna have to get used to being a bit emotional, I’m afraid. Comes with the package.”
No-one had called me "honey" in probably fifty years. I should have been indignant, but I wasn’t. It was comforting. And that, of course, was scary. What on earth was wrong with me!
“Y-y-you’re not emotional all the t-t-time!” I managed to stammer, while pouring tears into her shoulder.
“You don’t know that." She stroked my silky new hair with one hand. “Girls develop coping mechanisms, same as boys do. But they’re different ones, and you don’t have ‘em. We learn ways to hide our emotions, and around whom. Distinguished professors, just as a random example. Not every girl is super emotional. But I’m starting to think you might be. Imagine the flood of hormones that must be running through your system right now!”
“I’m gonna be crying forever?” I cried, appalled.
“No, Honey,” she soothed. “Not forever. But sure as hell, for often. Better get used to it.”
Oddly enough, that was a bigger blow to my ego than the loss of my family jewels. My equipment was hidden, private. Crying all the time? There was no way to hide that. What indignity!
“I wanna DIE!!!!” I said, forgetting both proper grammar and my stoic resolve in the misery of this new revelation.
“I know, Honey,” she said. “That’s part of the package, too.”
– To be continued. But you prolly guessed that.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 4: To Boldly Go . . . .
We had about an hour and a half drive to retrieve my car, once I had recovered sufficiently from the shocks of the morning. It’s a lovely drive, but I wasn’t in the best of moods to appreciate the joys of nature.
Nevertheless – or nonetheless, they are used, if at all, interchangeably – it was time well-spent.
Janet quizzed me carefully about everything the damned termites had said while I was in their hands. Pincers? Whatever.
Then we started trying to think through the implications. They had shot me with something that, over the course of a month, was going to make me both younger – but we didn’t know how young – and better-looking. And, as had become superabundantly clear this so very fine morning, female.
“So, if you’re about a week in, you’ve got a bit more than three weeks to go before the process is done,” Janet said. “And those weeks are gonna be weird as a tap-dancing emu, if your experience so far is any indication.”
I could only agree with that assessment. But I was also thinking about the next hurdle. “Janet, I’ve got an identity. A history. All of that will disappear – I will disappear, for all intents and purposes. I’ll still be me – at least, I hope I’ll still be me, even if I’m an emotional, weepy, not-very-rational version of me. But the rest of the world won’t believe it. As a young woman, or God help me, a young girl, I won’t have any kind of identity at all. No job, no income, no healthcare, no access to funds!”
She nodded as I spoke, pondering my words for a few minutes while she drove. Then she said, “It’s a problem, sure enough. A whole constellation of problems, I reckon. Add ‘em to the list. But . . . there’s a more fundamental problem that you’re maybe missin.’ At least I think y’are, based on what you’ve been sayin.’”
I looked at her, chewing her lip in thought, and said, “Ah? Things are even worse? Splendid. What extra catastrophe do I need to add to my burgeoning list?”
“Patience, patience,” she said, swatting away my comment. “Gotta think about how to say this right. And throwin’ those five dollar words at me isn’t gonna help.” She chewed some more as her car ate up asphalt.
Then she said, “It’s your ‘tude, James. Like I said this morning, you’re handlin’ this really well. Like a trooper. Stoic and all that. Very John Wayne. Maybe even Gary Cooper. An’ it’s better’n lyin’ on the floor cryin’ about it, I s’pose. But . . . bein’ a woman – even bein’ a girl . . . It’s not a frickin’ prison sentence. It’s not somethin’ to be endured, or conquered. It’s . . . it’s . . . “
She pounded the steering wheel in apparent frustration, then finished, “Alright, I’ll say it. It’s a privilege. Understand? Maybe bein’ a man’s a privilege too. I’ve had my doubts sometimes, that’s for sure. But you! – You have an opportunity to see the world in an entirely new way. To have experiences that James Marshall Wainwright could never have dreamed of havin’ . . . . You get to . . . I don’t know . . . .”
“Boldly go where no man has gone before?” I asked, dryly.
“YES!!!” she said. “Yes, damn it. You do! And you’ll get through all of this – and it’ll be a lot to get through, I’m sure – in a whole lot better shape, if you start appreciatin’ what a truly wonderful opportunity you’ve been given. If you march along, grimly determined to bear what must be born, you’ll damned well miss everything that makes being a woman fun and worthwhile. You’ll just be a man in a woman’s body. How’d you describe it? A weepy, not-very-rational version of yourself? Shit, James! No wonder you're grim. Who’d want to be that?”
“Janet,” I said, surprising myself by how gently it came out. “What’s this all about? I need a change of attitude. Splendid. I’ll put in an order for that. But is this really about me?”
“Yes it is,” she said forcefully. “I care about you, idiot. But . . . sure. If I’d been given the chance that you’ve been given? If I’d been crazy enough to be hiking the AT all by myself rather than sittin’ at home, thinkin’ about the kids I never had, or the grandkids I never will have, or what goddamned nursing home I’d have to settle for down the road? I’d be turnin’ cartwheels right now. I’d be turnin’ cartwheels just at the idea that I’d be able to turn cartwheels again!”
She paused, thought a moment more, and added, “And if you told me I’d have to switch genders for the privilege, why . . . I’d view that as a plus. Not ‘cuz I don’t like bein’ a woman; I do. Not ‘cuz I want to be one of you lunks! I don’t. But ‘cuz sure as hell, that's not somethin’ you get to do every day!”
I had been so wrapped in my own problems that I hadn’t really thought about what Janet would be thinking. Feeling. From where she was sitting, I was getting an incredible adventure. One she couldn’t share.
Keeping my voice gentle, I said, “You do know we’re in New England, don’t you?”
“Yeah, why?” she responded, confused by the non sequitur.
“Nothing really; it’s just that we normally drive on the right side of the road in this country,” I said warily.
“Oh, fuck you!” she said, exasperated, as she swerved us back where we belonged and dropped the speed down to within ten miles per hour of the posted limit. I relaxed my death grip on the door handle fractionally.
“Hey,” I said, “If you’re going to get weepy, or emotional, maybe I ought to take the wheel?”
“ . . . And the sorry, lice-infested excuse for a nag you rode in on!” she added. “I can cope. You don’t have a clue. Yet.”
We drove a bit in silence. I could see that Janet was still hurting and I didn’t really know how to deal with that. I tried another conversational gambit.
“What are the good parts of being a woman, Janet? What can you do, that I don’t get to do as a man?”
She decided to take the bait. “Well,” she said, “I find women tend to have better conversations than men. Deeper. More meaningful. It allows us to be closer to other women; men seem to be more emotionally isolated.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said in response. I like my solitude, after all.
“Too much of a good thing is a bad thing,” she said.
“Huh,” I said, before adding brightly, “Well, then, we’ve got at least forty-five minutes left to drive. Let’s have a deep and meaningful conversation! What shall we talk about?”
“The fifty different ways to dismember a distinguished professor of linguistics?” she suggested acidly, adding, “Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole?”
“Not to my face,” I said thoughtfully, “though it has come up in some anonymous student evaluations. From time to time.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t put it on a goddamned billboard,” she growled. “Maybe we should hold off on meaningful conversations until you’ve had a period, lost half your ego, and filled out at least a C-cup.”
Ouch! I should have known better than to try a rubber of repartee with Janet. Might as well try to keep both ears while going three rounds with Iron Mike Tyson. Still, Janet riled up was better than Janet distressed. But it was time to throw in the towel.
“You’re right,” I said. “On all counts. But I’m scared, Janet. There is no way I can manage this alone. Will you join me on this little adventure? Share it with me?”
She kept her eyes facing forward. Firmly. She said, “I might slow you down. I’m not getting any younger, but you are.”
“You always said your students keep you young. They have, too. But it doesn’t matter. Even if I’m suddenly supplied with good looks and ‘youthful vigah,’ God help me, all I’ll be doing is falling on my increasingly plump and lovely ass. I only just figured out that women use toilet paper when they piss.”
“Seriously?” she said, incredulously. “What on earth did you think we use? Our prehensile tails?”
“I’d never given the matter any thought,” I said. “Not once. Why would I? It wasn’t germane to my research. But now I need to know it, and probably a million other seemingly obvious things just like it. Please, Janet? I can’t do this without you.”
She kept driving, but a smile slowly began to spread over her face. Not, I hasten to add, the sweetest smile I’d ever seen, either.
“Oh, Honey,” she said, “Count me in, but you may wish you hadn’t asked!”
I gulped. “Why?”
“Don’t worry your pretty golden head about that,” she said. “But just as a bit of an appetizer, before we get back to Northampton, we need to stop and get a few things. To help you learn. Think of them as educational supplies.”
“What kind of supplies?” I asked, warily.
“Oh, nothin’ much,” she said cheerily. “You’re gonna need some new clothes. Some things that have some give, in case you keep, ah . . . y’know . . . shrinkin’. Some decent underwear. A pretty dress or two. Some makeup. Some tampons, just in case. And a bra.”
“Surely it’s too soon for all that,” I protested weakly.
“You need practice, girl,” she replied. “And don’t call me ‘Shirley’!”
I didn’t want to offend Janet again, so I managed – just barely – to avoid repeating what I was thinking.
* * * * *
We stopped at the Target in Lennox after we had picked up my car. I was still getting over the fact that I had needed to adjust my seat and all of my mirrors before I had been able to drive safely. Not for the last time, I wondered just how bad this was going to get.
When we got inside, Janet got a cart and resolutely marched me to the nearest gallows: in this case, the area where the store showcased “intimates” for women. I gritted my teeth and tried to remind myself to improve what Janet – and anyone under forty – would call my ‘tude.
“Alright,” she said, neither raising her voice nor making any effort to lower it, “let’s start with some panties. What do you fancy?”
“Asphyxiation,” I replied, sotto voce. “As a way of dying, it’s far preferable to mortification. At least, that’s my assessment at this precise moment.”
“Drama much?” she asked sardonically. “If it helps, James, just tell yourself that it’s for science.”
“You could try to keep your voice down, at least,” I whispered furiously.
“I could,” she agreed. “But where’s the fun in that?”
I gave her a glower that should have reduced her to a puddle of quivering jelly.
She looked at me quizzically. “You’re gonna have to retire that look, James. Without your bushy eyebrows, your glare just looks . . . I dunno. Cute?”
I tried gritting my teeth, but she just shook her head. “Nope. Not that either.” Then she reached out and touched my arm lightly. “No-one’s paying any attention. But if they do, why should you care? We’re a long ways from home, and you’ll never see any of these people again.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reminded myself, once again, about my ‘tude. Without opening them, I said, “Fine. Something basic. What’s the female equivalent of tighty-whities?”
“You are!” she retorted. “Or you will be, if you don’t get over yourself.”
I opened my eyes to see Janet just staring at me impatiently.
“Got that outta your system?” she asked.
I nodded, chagrined.
“Good,” she responded. “Now listen up. Is there a female equivalent of ‘tighty-whities? I’m sure there is. At very least, there are things that are boring, even if they don’t actually go out of their way to be grotesque. I mean, really? Tighty-whities?”
I wanted to glower, but I had been warned. It wasn’t working.
She continued, “You go down that path, though, and you will end up becoming just a double x version of yourself. Less emotionally stable, I expect, as you suggested before. Not because women are unstable, but because you won’t have learned to handle your emotions. And . . . you won’t be any more emotionally connected. Or connected to the physical world. The world of sights and sounds and smells and feeling. If you want more – and, honest to God, Honey, you do – you have to stop thinking like a man.”
“Okay, okay!” I said. “But you can’t really be suggesting that women have deep and meaningful thoughts about underwear, for God’s sake?”
“I can, and we do,” she said. “Maybe not every day, but it happens. Honestly, does that shock you? Why else would a discount store in a town of maybe five thousand people have so many options?”
I just shook my head. No clue. The question was far beyond the scope of any intellectual inquiry I had ever pursued.
She said, “Sometimes we want underwear that’s just useful or comfortable, sure. But sometimes we want to wear an outfit that requires different underwear. Other times we may want to feel sexy. Or just pretty.”
“Janet,” I said, panicked. “I’m not trying to pick up a date, for the love of all that’s holy! I just need some underwear! Why would I want to feel pretty? Much less . . . er . . . sexy?”
I was blushing so hard that all traffic would likely stop until I turned green again.
Janet gave me a pitying look. “Sure, sometimes we want to feel pretty or sexy for some guy. But other times we may just want to feel pretty or sexy for ourselves. As a reminder of that part of our existence. Feelin’ pretty, or sexy, is one of those things about being a woman that can be a very special experience. One you’ve never had. Why wouldn’t you want it?”
She gave me a look, chuckled, and said, “You might want to control your saggin’ jaw, James. You look funny with your mouth hanging open.”
As I endeavored to bring my facial expression back under control, she continued, “Remember, the main point of this exercise isn’t to get you clothes. There’s a good chance you won’t fit them for long anyways, ‘cuz you’re still shrinkin’, remember? The main point is to get you to start thinkin' differently. Women pay attention to things. Like color, texture, cut. Including when shopping for underwear. What colors do you like? Look at them. What fabrics? Touch ‘em. Use your imagination. Imagine how they would feel on you.”
“Janet!” I said, “that’s practically pornographic!”
That earned a grin. “If you say so,” she said. “Now: Look. Feel. Imagine. Choose.”
I wanted to protest, but I had asked for her help. I had to take it on faith that, while she might enjoy embarrassing me, that wasn’t why she was doing what she was doing. I had to start thinking in different ways. Women didn’t just dress for comfort? Fine. Got it.
I looked at the racks of panties. Black, white, off-white, pink, red, blue, peach. Animal prints. Why animal prints, for pity’s sake? Why would anyone want to make their ass look like a cheetah pelt? Some idiot in camo and an orange vest might just load you up with buckshot!
There were also different fabrics. Cotton, clearly, was a minority option. Most looked more like nylon of some sort. Then there were the actual shapes. Lots of fabric. Next to no fabric. The decorations. Lace. No lace. Little embroidered flowers. What was the purpose of this many choices?
Glancing furtively around and seeing no-one, I reached out and ran a finger down the front of an innocuous looking nylon pair as I had been instructed.
I almost jerked my hand away. Just the act of running a finger down the front of a pair of panties had given me a shock of pleasure, not unlike the shock I had gotten when I lathered my chest earlier in the morning. I felt something – something almost . . . squirrely? In the newest parts of my anatomy. A warm, pleasant feeling that made me want to squirm.
I stroked the front of the panties again, more thoughtfully. It’s for science! Again per Janet’s instructions, I imagined what it would feel like, to pull these panties up my legs . . . my suddenly smooth legs . . . to settle them where they belonged; feel them touching me. Cradling my new equipment . . . .
YIKES! Yeah, I hadn’t been kidding! It was practically pornographic. I felt flushed and looked up, embarrassed, to find Janet looking at me, a bit of mischief dancing in her eyes.
“He likes it! Hey Mikey!” she said playfully. “See? Bein’ a girl ain’t all bad. You like that color?”
The panties I had been fingering were a sort of light brown. I said, almost without thought, “I guess so . . . .”
“But they’re maybe a bit boring?” Janet probed.
I felt my blush growing stronger. I opened my mouth. Closed it again. And finally said, in a small voice, “Yeah, maybe they are.”
“Now you're talking,” Janet said approvingly. “Can you imagine yourself wearing something in red? With your new coloring, you could pull it off.”
I closed my eyes again, my body and senses at war with a lifetime of living, and imagined myself wearing red panties. My first mental image was me as I had been, up until a week ago. The panties looked absurd. But I forced myself to adjust my mental image. To imagine myself as female first . . . . My breath quickened, ever so slightly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Okay!” Janet responded. “That’s one small step for a woman – pretty much just another Saturday, really. But sure as hell, it’s one giant leap for mankind.”
She put several pairs of panties in the cart, including two in a cherry red. All of her selections appeared to use fabrics that were softer, silkier, than anything I had ever had next to my skin.
Next she took me over to where the store had arranged racks of bras. “This’ll just be for practice,” Janet said, “since we don’t know either the band or the cup size you’ll need once everything has, ah, shaken out. Although . . . .”
She appeared to have been caught by a thought she was reluctant to share with me.
I decided that if Janet thought discretion was the better part of valor, I definitely didn’t need to hear it. Whatever it was.
She shook off the thought and said, “let’s just get you something you can wear now.” She flashed me a grin. “In red, of course!”
My blush came back in full force.
“Excuse me,” a female voice said behind us. I froze. The voice continued, “I’ve got a tape measure if you need one.” I couldn’t bear to turn around. I wanted to sink into the floor. Liquidate, like the Wicked Witch of the West.
But Janet, naturally, took it completely in stride. “Do you? That’d be a big help. Thanks, love.” She reached a hand behind me and it came back with a roll of something in it.
“Lift up your arms, Hon,” she said to me.
I was flashing panic signs at her with my frantic eyes, but she ignored me and unwound the roll of measuring tape. Feeling like a circus performer, I raised my arms to the height of my shoulders.
Janet wrapped the tape around my torso and said, “Forty.” She wound the tape and handed it back to the other woman, still behind me.
I felt foreign fingers run through my hair, and the woman said, “I’m just in for some . . . supplies. But I’m always on the lookout for new subs. What do you say, Toots? Looking for a walk on the wild side!” Her voice was low and sultry.
“Great good heavens!” I barked, stepping out of her reach and spinning around, “Just what kind of a job are you subcontracting!”
Before the woman could do more than chuckle, Janet said, “Now, now, dearie. No poaching. This one’s mine. Run along, now.”
The woman – dyed red hair and fairly dramatic, er, curves, puckered her mouth in a strange expression. “Such a pity!” she said, and sautered away, chuckling.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. “Another fun part of being a woman?”
I was a bit caustic, and I was certainly louder than I intended to be. I looked around frantically, but with the woman’s departure we were again alone.
“Nah,” Janet said. “I doubt you’ll run into that kind of problem once you can pass. So we should speed the day, right?”
I felt so much better. I was hoping that the incident would lead Janet to cut short our little shopping spree, but I should have known it wouldn’t.
She just went to the rack, found what looked like a really large bra, in red, and put it in the cart. She got something else as well – something I’d seen some of the girls around campus wearing when they were jogging. It looked very different from the red bra, but the functional elements were sufficiently similar that I had to conclude the garment served a similar purpose.
“Sports bra,” Janet said in answer to my quizzical look.
I looked at it. It was a royal blue and had to have twenty criss-crossing straps in the back. “I don’t get it,” I said. “How does that help you with sports?”
Janet gave me an evil grin. “Well, now, that depends on the sport, doesn't it?”
If I got any redder, someone was going to call the paramedics.
Janet did spend less time on the other items that she wanted to get. I had the sense that I had managed to jump whatever gate she had set for me, and she was now eager to get what she needed and get out. Good by me, though . . . damn! The woman was a whirlwind of activity. Nylons. Two shirts (she called them “tops”). A short, stretchy black skirt. Something she described as a “shirt dress.” A nightgown. The thought of the nightgown gave me another shiver. A robe. Two pairs of “leggings.” A few cosmetics. Some of what she described as “feminine hygiene products.”
We brought them to the register and I got a kind of funny look from the guy who rung it up. I decided the best thing to do was tell myself, as firmly as I could, that I would never see him again, and even if he saw me . . . he probably wouldn’t recognize me. Hell, I probably wouldn’t recognize me.
In the parking lot, we loaded the purchases into the back of the Forester. Then Janet said, “James . . . Why don’t you just follow me home. Your condo isn’t the most private place in the world. I’ve got a spare bedroom you can use, and this way I can keep an eye on you. I won’t be much help when you’re at home.”
I thought about it. I like my privacy, but . . . as Janet had said, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Right now, I found that I had a strong desire to stick to my friend like a cocklebur to a terrier. That was worrisome. Extremely worrisome, really. But I decided I wasn’t going to fight it.
* * * * *
We were back at Janet’s place by 1:00, or so. She had me bring the Target bags into her spare bedroom. The room was clearly used as her study. Desk, computer, a wall of books . . . . my own study looked pretty similar, though the book titles were of course different. There was practically an entire shelf of books on Nathaniel Hawthorne – titles like Hawthorne and Women: Engendering and Expanding the Hawthorne Tradition; Understanding The Scarlet Letter: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents; and Student Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. I knew Hawthorne held pride of place in Janet’s pantheon of authors. But I have a hard time reading fiction itself. Reading articles and books about fiction . . . I think I’d prefer giving a lecture while wearing nothing but lingerie. At least the students might stay awake!
The room had a twin bed tucked against the wall that had drawers under it, as well as a narrow, deep, typically useless old New England closet. Fortunately, while it had felt like we bought an enormous amount at Target, it was actually about what one might pack for a weekend away. It didn’t look like much when we put it all away.
When we were done with that project, Janet said, “Okay, I’m gonna make us some lunch. What I want you to do is to spend some time tryin’ on your new purchases. See how you like them. Don’t worry about the mirror just now. That’s gonna be unhelpful for a bit, I expect. Just try your things on, see how they feel and how they fit. Then pick something to wear and join me in . . . forty-five minutes?”
I nodded, trying not to allow my trepidation to show. I didn’t want another sermon about my “beatitude.”
She smiled and left, closing the door behind her.
I stood for a long moment, cursing fate and termites alike. Then I sighed and stripped.
Unfortunately, my male genitalia had not seen fit to re-emerge from their hiding place over the course of the day. Instead, some peach fuzz had started to sprout in the triangle above my new equipment. Naturally, it was both fiery gold and itched like poison ivy. Figures.
I opened the drawer, and the silky red panties stared back at me. I growled, “I’m not Maria, for God’s sake! I’ve got no business feeling pretty . . . or witty . . . or effing bright!”
But I reached down anyway. I picked them up, feeling an absolute shock of . . . something. Of knowing, maybe. The logical part of my mind – which is to say, all of it, dammit! – told me to stop fussing. It was just a piece of fabric, and it was absurd to invest it with some deep meaning. It was stupid to delay putting on undergarments that had been designed for my body’s current, ah, configuration. To instead be standing bareass naked in the middle of the room holding them, like I was about to declaim an Ode to Red Panties.
But my mind, I realized with something like a thermal shock, was wrong. The panties positively screamed “girl-woman-female-feminine!” If I put them on, it would be like I was accepting my new reality. Becoming an accomplice. It wouldn’t just be something that had been done to me anymore, it would be something I was actively advancing. Could I live with that?
My mind turned to Janet’s words earlier today. I considered how I would feel if Janet was the one who had been injected with . . . with whatever. If she were the one who was growing younger, better looking. Changing genders. Would I feel horrified for her? Or would I be jealous? If I could switch with her right now, give her the big adventure and return to my old life, would I?
Yes, I would. Absolutely.
But . . . Not because I didn’t want the adventure. I’d switch because I knew how much it would mean to her. Because she was my best friend, and I wouldn’t want her to feel left behind. Or . . . old. Before her outburst today, I had never thought of her as old.
So I’d switch in a heartbeat, and inside, where no-one would ever see, I would weep. For what I might have done. What I might have been.
I found myself tearing up again, but I shook it off. No! I’d give the gift to Janet if I could, but since I couldn’t, the least I could do was try not to squander it. Resolutely, I put one foot, then the other, through the appropriate holes and pulled the panties up my legs. I settled them into place. I ran my hands down the sides. Across the bottom. They felt . . . .
No. . . . I felt.
I felt pretty. And sexy. Oh. My. God.
Before I could chicken out – or, for that matter, pass out – I bent down and grabbed the matching bra. In for a dime, in for a . . . .
How in hell does the contraption work? It was obvious where everything went, but how were you supposed to fasten it? There were no buttons or zippers. Just rows of strange hook-looking things.
After a couple minutes, I figured out how the two sets of hooky thingies connected to each other, so I did that. But now how was I supposed to get it on? It was apparent that the hooky thingies weren’t supposed to be fastened until my arms were through the straps, so I undid them and tried that. But then the things were behind me. I couldn’t see to fasten them.
I tried putting it on backwards. I was able to get everything connected, but now the parts that were supposed to hold my still non-existent breasts were over my shoulder blades. I sure as hell hoped that the termites hadn’t screwed up and put my breasts on backwards!
I tried rotating it, but the shoulder straps held it in place. What lunatic invented these things?
Finally, I managed to get my arms out of the shoulder straps, then I was able to rotate the cups to the front, then I put the straps back over my shoulders. It was crazy, and uncomfortable, and about as efficient as a Soviet-era collective farm. All of my good intentions were dissolving into intense frustration.
Janet knocked on the door and called out, “How are you doin’ in there, Hon?”
I froze. I wanted to scream my frustration. But . . . I didn’t want Janet to see me. I would cheerfully have lied, but I was strangely tongue-tied. While I wallowed in indecision like a rowboat in heavy chop, Janet walked in.
I stared at her, panicked. Feeling ridiculous. Absurd.
But she looked calm, and there was no hint of her usual sharp wit in her eyes.
“Good start, Hon,” she said in a kindly tone. “Those things are harder than they look. Let me help.” I could only stand, silent and petrified, as she walked over, reached behind and did something with one strap, then the other. Then she tugged the front of the bra lower, until the tight band was a couple inches lower than my nipples. Suddenly, it felt fine. Strange, of course, but not uncomfortable.
She put a hand on each of my shoulders. “You okay?”
I thought about it, but not for long. I’d already done my thinking. I put my hands over hers and gave them a squeeze. “Yes. I’m okay now. And I’ll be okay. Mostly. Prolly. Except when I’m not. But I won’t . . . I won’t waste the opportunity, Janet. I promise.”
She gave me a long, searching look, her eyes radiating concern and kindness both.
“Your panties are on backwards,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole?” I asked, with suitable affection.
“Every day and twice on Sundays,” she replied proudly. “Do I get a medal or somethin’?”
I giggled. I’m the Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, for God’s sake. I’m giggling?
It felt good.
She giggled with me and eventually we were laughing like loons. That felt even better.
Finally, she wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and said, “Girl, you need a new name. James won’t work, and Janet’s taken. How ‘bout Jessica?”
To be continued. Oh, surely.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 5: Mirror, Mirror
I finally got a call back from my doctor’s office on Monday afternoon. I let it go into voicemail. At this point it was abundantly clear what was happening to me. But I needed to figure out how public I wanted that information to be.
Janet invited me to join her on her secluded back patio with its sinfully comfortable chairs. At her insistence, I was wearing a bra, panties and a light cotton dress. The unfamiliar clothes felt surprisingly nice, but I knew I looked ridiculous. My downstairs equipment may have been the first defection in my internal battle of the sexes, but it hadn’t yet convinced the rest of the team to get onboard the double X express.
“I look like a doofus in a dress, Janet,” I said as I joined her outside. “Maybe I should hold off until I can be a bit more convincing.”
“Feeling awkward and unlovely is part of almost every girl’s experience of puberty,” she responded. “No reason you should be spared entirely. We all go through years of it. Besides, maybe it’ll make you a bit more understandin’ of the rest of us when you’re a blond bombshell.”
“Keeping me humble, whether I need it or not?”
“Trust me, Honey. I’ll let you know when you don’t need it anymore!”
“Only if you outlive me.”
“Got it in one,” she said approvingly.
I could see her point about the experience. Though there was a stupid part of me that was wishing she had contradicted my disparaging words about my appearance. Vanity? Over my appearance? Really?!!! Whatever was going on was playing the limbo with my professorial dignity. How low would I go?
I quelled my inner idiot long enough to sit down. But before I could say anything, Janet had me stand up and do it again. “You have to capture the back of your skirt when you sit down in a dress, Jessica.”
When I gave her a blank stare, she stood up and demonstrated the motion, even though she was sensibly wearing shorts.
“So I run my hand over my ass, then down the backs of my thighs towards my knees?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “It’s expected. Doesn’t even count as feeling yourself up.”
I managed the maneuver as instructed. But . . . given how sensitive everything down there seemed, I thought it kind of did count. I quelled my inner hedonist too. “I just got a call from Quibble’s office. I’m on the fence on whether to go see him.”
“I’m assumin’ this is more’n just your usual dislike of doctors, dentists and snake oil salesmen,” she said.
I nodded. “We know what’s going on now. There’s nothing he can tell us we don’t know, and he won’t believe the explanation anyway. But . . . given how much I’ve already changed, will he even believe it’s me?”
Janet looked thoughtful. “You still look enough like yourself that he might. At least today. And you’ll keep changin’, so that’ll make the story more plausible once he has baseline data . . . . “ She came to some internal conclusion, nodded her head decisively, and said, “you should go. Today, if you can.”
“You want me to create an official record, don’t you?” I could see where she was going.
“Yup. It’ll give you some chance, anyway, to keep the powers that be from declaring you – James Marshall Wainwright – a missin’ person.”
“If he actually ends up believing me, he – or maybe just my bloodwork – might end up ringing some alarm bells in officialdom. That . . . might not be a bad thing.”
“You WANT officials to pay attention?”
“Not sure,” I said. “But I think so. The termites – aliens – whatever – said they’re coming back in a couple weeks. They’ll want me to speak for them. To whom? Well. Gotta be someone official.”
Janet’s eyes were big as golf balls. “Wait – you aren’t seriously thinkin’ of trying to arrange a little purchase of weapons-grade uranium, are you?”
“Well . . . .”
“They’ll lock you up!” she exclaimed. “In an asylum, if they’re feelin’ friendly and forgivin’. Frickin’ Guantanamo if they’re not!”
“Maybe, but . . . maybe not.”
“Okay,” she said. “That girl juice IS scramblin’ your brains. You’re nuts!”
I held up a hand to forestall her outburst, just noticing that it looked . . . different. Smaller. Less palm, maybe? Nevermind. “I’m thinking that the aliens said they wanted to trade. They might have something that would peak enough interest to at least get a hearing.”
“A hearing on selling some U-235?” She sounded skeptical. Make that, “appropriately skeptical.”
“Maybe. But anyway, it’ll give me something to discuss with the termites when they get back. I can tell them it’ll take something really, really good for it to be worth even approaching our authorities. Maybe we’ll find out what’s in their goody bag.”
“More’n likely it’s a monkey’s paw,” she said darkly.
“What?” I was baffled.
She just shook her head. “You’re hopeless.”
“Look,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about this. There are undoubtedly people who would sell some enriched uranium in exchange for the secret that’s got me growing younger.”
“Not to mention purtier,” she interjected.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “That too. But I’ve got my doubts about whether that’s a good idea.”
“Huh?” She looked puzzled.
“Let’s say every old goat on earth is suddenly young . . . “
She nodded with sudden understanding. “And fecund. Yeah, I think I see where you’re headed.”
I reluctantly agreed. “Population explosion . . . today’s kids having to compete for work against people at least as healthy, but with decades of experience . . . social unrest . . . a world-wide baby-boom . . . .”
She capped it with, “followed by a Malthusian catastrophe. So . . . maybe that’s not the best thing to ask for. But you know, some people might trade U-235 for just a few shots of the stuff.”
I nodded. “Not here, I don’t think. Too many controls, and it couldn’t be kept secret. If the President showed up looking thirty-five again, someone would notice. But if we can’t think of something else . . . . Well. Put it this way. If I don’t speak for them, they’ll just find someone else. ‘Spose that someone is from, say, the less-well-lit parts of the Korean peninsula?”
She digested that thought for a minute. “Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine this morning?”
* * * * *
A wrap on the door and Quibble – Dr. Quentin Bell, as absolutely no-one called him – wandered in.
“Alright James,” he said, sounding mildly irritated in a whiny, nasal way, “what’s the emergency that you don’t want to discuss with . . . . James! What’s with the hair?!”
“I was hoping you might tell me that.” Quibble doesn’t bring out the best in me.
“I’m not a psychiatrist, James,” he said quellingly. “Though you’re a bit, ah, mature for a mid-life crisis.”
“Am I?” I asked, a bit offended. “What, do you schedule the damned things?”
“Not my department,” he replied. “Look, we squeezed you in ‘cuz you insisted, but I’m backed up. What is it?”
“Well, apart from suddenly becoming both younger and female, I guess not much. Does that fit within the narrow confines of the problems you are permitted to address?”
“There are doctors who handle gender dysphoria,” he said, “I don’t, and anyway that doesn’t seem like an emergency.”
I was getting annoyed at his attitude. I usually did, though it normally took more than half a minute. Maybe he was getting more efficiently officious? Still, I quelled my strong desire to march out. “Fine,” I said. “How’s this for an emergency?” I lifted up the stupid hospital gown to reveal my new equipment.
His irritation turned to shock. “Fuck me!” he exclaimed, forgetting to be officious. For once.
“Hard pass, doctor,” I said, repressively. “And you’d get failing marks for bedside manner if I taught the class, which, thank God, I don’t. Now, can we get on with it?” I dropped my gown.
“You had a vaginoplasty?” he asked, still sounding shocked.
“No. I was injected with magic juice by space aliens, and I’m turning into a gorgeous young woman.”
“When did you have the surgery done?” he asked, ignoring my remark.
“It wasn’t surgery. Space aliens.”
“You didn’t raise this with me when you had your physical. I don’t know that insurance . . . “
“Space aliens,” I repeated firmly, cutting him off.
“I don’t know what you think you're playing at, James, but it’s NOT amusing,” he snapped. At least he was actually responding to what I was saying.
“Look,” I said. “Don’t believe me. Be a skeptic. That’s even better. But run your tests, take blood work, and then give me your hypothesis. If you’d looked at your chart, you’d have noticed I also shrank a couple inches since I saw you in March. Did I make that up too?”
He checked his chart. Checked it again. Then looked at me more closely. “Wait a minute . . . Of course! You aren’t James Wainwright. You aren’t sixty, and you're shorter, and you have red hair . . . a daughter? What’s your game?”
I said, “Janet was right. She came along because she figured you would need convincing. She’ll confirm my identity.”
“Janet who? Wait . . . Janet Seldon? She’s here?”
Janet and I – and probably half the faculty of arts and letters, come to that – were his patients. Not because he was any good, but because the alternatives were probably worse. Though I was starting to question that conclusion. Maybe I should have taught at a university with its own medical school, I thought to myself.
“Yes, she’s in the waiting room.”
He scurried out like a rabbit, muttering something about being late.
Minutes later, I heard Janet well before I saw her. “Don’t be such a damned fool,” she was not-quite-shouting. “You’ve known him as long as you’ve had your practice!”
I didn’t hear Quibble until he opened the door, and only caught the last part of his response, which was, “Or a vagina!”
“Doctor,” I said, trying mightily to sound reasonable, “You know me. Besides, who else has my sparkling wit and pleasant demeanor?”
“Half the damned faculty,” he growled in response. “I don’t know why I deal with academics. Pack of over privileged, overeducated, assholes!”
“‘Cuz we cover your green fees?” Janet suggested, caustically.
“And try to stay out of your office as much as possible?” I added.
“Fine! Whatever! It was a rhetorical question!” he said. Intemperately, in my view.
“I’d give you low marks in rhetoric too,” I said. “And I do teach that one, when I can’t get out of it. But that’s not important right now. Look, Janet has vouched for my identity. Will that do at least to get the ball rolling, or are you going to call her a liar too?”
“Oh, come on!” he said. “Space aliens?”
“Like I said, don’t believe it. All you need to do is take measurements, make observations and get some blood work done. I don’t know what any of that will show. But I can come back in a week and you can do more tests. If this progresses the way I think it will, you’ll know then.”
“How do I know that next week, you won’t just send in someone who’s younger and prettier than you are?” he asked.
“No idea,” I responded, exasperated. “You’re the doctor. Surprise me. Think up some way to tell.”
He grumbled some more, but finally he took some measurements, snapped some photos and drew some blood.
* * * * *
“Janet,” I said warily, “this looks like a bioweapons lab.”
She gave a critical look at the tubes, vials and bottles spread out over the top of her vanity and said, “yeah, well . . . I guess maybe it IS a bit daunting.” She chewed her lip a minute before adding, “Also toxic; I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.”
“You actually use all of this . . . stuff?” I asked, incredulous.
“Not very often, these days,” she conceded. “At 60, pursuin’ glamor can be a bit like chasin’a bullet train that’s already left the station. But I make sure I look good for class, and better if I’m goin’ out to dinner or somethin.’”
“I’ve never seen you slathered in makeup!”
“Well, Honey, if you do it right, people don’t notice the cosmetics. They notice you.”
“Okaaaaay,” I said, shakily. “Chemistry was never my strong suit, and I was purely hopeless at art. Which I last took in grade school, for the record. But . . . lead on, MacDuff!”
“It’s ‘lay on,’ you Philistine,” she scolded. “And that’s probably more descriptive in this context anyways. So let’s get started.”
Moisturizers, primers, foundation, concealers (“‘Spect you won’t need these in another week’r so”), highlighters, setting powder, finishing powder, eyeshadow primer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, eyebrow pencils and powders, lip primer, pencil, stick and gloss . . . . How could anyone even keep it all straight?
After a solid hour of demos and practice, I didn’t look like myself, and I did look female. Just not a very attractive female. Decidedly unpretty. And . . . that bothered me. Why?
“I’m ugly,” I moped.
“Keep at it,” she admonished. “They say beauty is skin care.”
“They do not!”
“How do you know? I didn’t even say who ‘they’ were.”
“Other than manufacturers of skin care products, you mean?
“Yeah. Other’n them.”
With great satisfaction, I said, “Anyway, even I know that beauty is supposed to be skin deep!”
“Oh,” she said. “It is? ‘Cuz if so . . . well . . . you’ve still got ‘miles to go before you deep.’”
“Arrrrrrrgh!!!!” I said. “This is hopeless!”
“Don’t you fuss, Jessica,” she said. “You’ll be there long before you’re ready, I ‘spect.”
* * * * *
I stared at the new mark on the doorframe. Five feet, eleven inches. I had lost another two inches of height since I moved into Janet’s spare bedroom. Just a week ago, it was. I was now two weeks into what the strange aliens had said would be a month of transition.
Once my poor overmatched testes threw in the towel, there was no big source of testosterone in my system to fight whatever I’d been injected with, and the changes were coming fast.
In the course of a week, my chest had exploded with two pert breasts. They didn’t come close to filling out the practice bra Janet had me buy a week earlier, but they were straining mightily to exceed expectations. Every morning they greeted me like a pair of hyperactive edelweiss, each time just a bit larger, a bit rounder, a bit softer and a whole lot more sensitive.
My hips were spreading, my ass was kicking, and my waist was wasting. Even my face was becoming unrecognizable. That it was framed by an effulgence of fine golden hair that came down past my increasingly narrow shoulders didn’t help. If I went to buy lingerie today, no-one would bat a false eyelash. I’d be just another woman.
I tried to maintain my professorial detachment about the changes. My body was part of a novel experiment. I had an obligation to record the changes minutely. And I did, keeping a careful log of measurements, the physical changes, the amount I was eating and – especially – sleeping. It seemed like I was sleeping a lot more than I was awake. I was hoping that was related to the process of changing, and not to what I would be like when I was “finished.” I couldn’t get much done if I only had seven hours in a day to do it. Especially if a statistically significant portion of those waking hours were taken up with primping.
But what I wasn’t writing was far more important than what I was. For example, that I was coming to actively enjoy primping. That I loved the feel of silky underwear. The mild perfume of a floral shampoo and conditioner. The way my shirtdress showed off my new curves. I was enjoying my lessons in cosmetics. And even deportment. All of it suddenly felt right. Increasingly, I found the idea that I would soon be a beautiful young woman . . . appealing. More than appealing, really. Exciting. Attractive. Even . . . hot?
Yikes!
Of course, I might just blow past all of that lambent hotness and continue shrinking until I ended up a really cute 5-year old. THAT possibility wasn’t appealing. Not at all.
To all appearances, my current age was somewhere in the mid-thirties. I could be Janet’s daughter, except that we didn’t look much alike. But my feet had shrunk to the point that her shoes would fit me, and part of today’s curriculum was learning to walk in them.
A week ago, I would have approached that prospect with absolute horror. And I’ll confess, I still wasn’t ready to dance a jig about it. Assuming, of course, that one could dance in the kind of footwear Janet was proposing I try. I mean, women do it, every day. Apparently. But I’ve never heard any of them say good things about it. Not once.
“Okay, Jessica,” said Janet. “Let’s get you started. For your first attempt, let’s go with a two-inch kitten heel.”
I shook my head and took the offered shoes. They looked . . . fun? Cute? God help me. But I had no idea why she was talking about kittens.
* * * * *
“So . . . what d’you suppose your aliens might offer, that the powers that be might want?” Janet asked.
We were in the kitchen chopping vegetables for a salad, rehashing our recurring topic of conversation: what do I do when the bugs come back?
“You mean, apart from drugs that would revolutionize medicine and exponentially increase the likelihood that our population will exceed the planet’s carrying capacity?” I asked in response.
“Yeah. Apart from that.”
“It does sort of highlight the problem, though, doesn’t it?” I asked. “It’s easy to see the benefits of superior technologies, but . . . without the infrastructure in place – biological, engineering, social, political – any change sufficiently large to be tempting to the folks who control enriched uranium could have disastrous downsides.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?”
“We’re professors. We’re paid to think too much.”
“I’m not,” Janet protested. “I’m paid to read fun stuff and chat about it with children. It’s a pretty good gig, really.” She nonetheless thought for a few minutes before offering, “How ‘bout they fix global warming for us?”
“That’s kind of amorphous, don’t you think? They might just decide to move the planet a bit further from the sun. One problem solved, a whole lot more created!”
“It worked for Larry Niven,” she replied.
“Amazing! You know someone who tried it?” I was unable to restrain the bite of sarcasm.
“A story, Jessica. Science Fiction. Really, you should branch out some!” She shook her head ruefully, apparently saddened by the hopelessly narrow focus of my intellectual endeavors.
“The key element in your description is ‘fiction,’ Janet. Not ‘science!’”
“Huh,” she said in response. “Maybe, but if I had to choose one or t’other to help us right now, I’d choose a good SciFi writer over a good scientist.”
“Absurd,” I said.
But she cut me off. “Not remotely. No-one’s ever even MET one of these aliens, apart from lucky you. So scientists would have nothin’ to work with. But SciFi writers are used to speculating’ about what aliens might be like. Thinking outside of what we know. Some of them are damned good at it, and we could use that kind of thinking. I’d give a lot to have Niven with us right now.”
I just looked at her. Literature, I decided, was a dangerous discipline. It did strange things to the human mind.
“I’m just sayin’, it’s possible that a couple of tenured professors from a liberal arts college in New England might not be the best people to deal with this problem,” Janet added.
“Ya think?” I replied. “But . . . Just at the moment, we’re all we’ve got.”
“Jesus,” she breathed. “Are YOU ever screwed!”
* * * * *
“What should I wear to see Quibble again?”
It was Monday, and I was scheduled to see the quack again. But that now presented a dilemma. We needed him to know that I was the same person he’d seen a week ago. But . . . I didn’t look much like me anymore. Not even like the ‘me’ he had seen and been skeptical about just a week prior. I couldn’t even convincingly present as male. My overachieving edelweiss alone were getting a solid C+ in advanced curvature.
“Not much sense tryin’ to look like a guy; no-one would buy it,” Janet confirmed. “I’ve got the photos and videos as well as your log. Not much else we can do.”
So we decided I’d just look like a woman going in for a doctor’s appointment. The sports bra was a better fit, so we went with that, leggings and what Janet persisted in calling a “top.” At least the word’s origins were clear and the meaning was logical. The shoes I borrowed from her were apparently called “flats.” That, too, was refreshingly logical.
This time, Janet came in with me. The nurse tried to stop her.
It didn’t go well.
Finally, Quibble joined us in the examination room. When he saw me, he said, “And you are?”
“Younger and prettier than I was a week ago, just like I warned you I would be,” I said caustically. He really brings out the worst in me.
He did a double take, then looked sharply at Janet and said, “I knew it! I knew you would bring in someone else. What’s your game, Professor Seldon? ‘Cuz I’m not playing!”
“STOP!” Janet said, full blast. “Just shut up for five minutes and look at these photos. Multiple photos, with date stamps, and time-lapse photography at one-hour intervals while she was sleeping.”
“Anyone can fake . . .”
Janet cut him off again. “Can, sure. Just like your wife can fake an orgasm, and almost certainly has to. Difference is, why the fuck would I fake this? Look at the damned photos, then tell us what your tests showed!”
Before Janet’s volcanic ire the highly credentialed rabbit quailed and deigned to look at the photos on her pad. Then he looked at them again.
Finally he looked up, sniffed, and said, “They have software that does this.”
I stood up. I might only be 5’10” today, but I could be a midget and I’d still be bigger than this little shit. “Doctor,” I snarled, making his title an epithet, “What. Did. Your. Tests. Show?”
He folded his arms, looked triumphant and said, “I don’t have to tell YOU anything. And can’t, by law. ‘Cuz you aren’t my patient!”
“If you were right about that – which you aren’t – it wouldn’t matter, because that would mean you didn’t run the tests on your patient,” I responded.
He had missed that obvious flaw in his reasoning, but he recovered quickly. “You aren’t the person I ran tests on, either!”
Janet was about to explode, but I stopped her. “We’ve completely wasted our time with this quack,” I said. “Let’s go.” I turned to Quibble and said, “Good luck trying to find the right billing code for this!”
“Just a minute!” he snarled at Janet, ignoring me altogether. “I need some answers!”
“Fine,” she snarled back. “Forty-two!”
I stormed out. Janet followed, doing a fair bit of storming in her own right. Between the two of us, we were a regular polar vortex of icy displeasure. The staff very prudently got out of our way.
“THAT could have gone better,” I sighed when we got to the car. “Forty-two?”
“Jessica,” she said, shaking her head, “I keep tellin’ you. You have got to start reading some fiction!”
* * * * *
“You should be safe ‘till a week before term starts,” Janet said. “Everyone knows you’re off the grid and on the AT somewhere. But once summer’s over, they’ll put out an APB.”
We were back at Janet’s house, and the cool of the evening was making her back patio pleasant. So long as you enjoyed the regular sound of electric shocks and the ozone-infused smell of mosquitos crisping in Janet’s big box bug killer. Which, honestly . . . I kind of did. Served the little bastards right.
I was nursing a glass of white wine. At Janet’s suggestion, I was sitting with my legs tucked under me. Full of suggestions, Janet. Pretty good ones, mostly.
“Well,” I responded, “I guess there isn’t much we can do about that. But the termites should be back well before then anyhow. Who knows what happens then? Maybe they’ll turn me into a tree frog if I can’t get them uranium.”
“If they do, I want you to promise that you’ll hop on over to Quibble’s house and keep him up all night with your chirping.”
“Frogs don’t chirp,” I asserted.
“I’m sure you’d be a chirpy frog,” she replied.
* * * * *
By the time the weekend came around, I was 5 foot nine and I looked like I was somewhere in my mid-twenties. I’d looked good before, but now . . . . The image I saw in the mirror was positively breathtaking. Blue-gray eyes in a heart-shaped face, plump, full lips, delicate nose, shapely brows, high cheek-bones and flowing hair halfway down my back. The sports bra could no longer contain my girls, and while the red underwire bra’s cups fit, its band no longer did. I was starting to see why the store had so many choices.
But in the absence of dams, levees, or usable bras, I was left with no effective containment options. For around the house that wasn’t as much of a problem as it should have been. Large as they had gotten, my bold but sensitive new friends seemed almost indecently perky. They did not sag or flop like fish. They just . . . jiggled. Spectacularly. Meanwhile, my hips, ass and waist were starting to look like the inspiration for fertility goddess icons.
At least everything appeared to be in the right place, even if the portions were, so to speak, generous. I had been worried, based on my original impression of the alien called Worm, that they might get something seriously wrong. But other than Janet’s periodic observation that they had endowed me with an extra large portion of asshole, the only anatomical abnormality I noticed was that the tendons in my ankles were uncomfortably tight when I was barefoot or wearing flats. Which, when I took time to think about it, was probably my own fault. When I thought about the People Magazine covers I had seen at supermarket checkout stands over the years, I could see why the termites might have thought that women’s feet naturally pointed.
But the exterior changes, however extraordinary, roiled me less than changes I felt inside. We had gotten a FedEx delivery – Janet, bless her, had ordered two new bras and a few extra things for me to wear, just to carry me through the transition. She was running some errands and I answered the door, only to find myself the subject of intense and hyper focused scrutiny by the man doing the delivery.
It seemed he was a fan of edelweiss. A big fan. And, until I unwrapped the package he was delivering, the thin fabric of my top was all the covering my eager blossoms would get, and it showcased, rather than concealed, them.
My face become hot. I quickly squiggled something on the pad so that he would go back to his truck.
He almost fell off the stairs, though, because he was looking back at me. Well, at the flowers. So to speak. It was his turn to blush.
I went back inside, closed the door, and leaned against it. His scrutiny had been unnerving. Not because I had felt scared or threatened, but because I had enjoyed it. Like everything else touching the core of my new femininity, I had felt a jolt of pleasure, powerful as an electric current. A tingling in my bountiful handfulls; a stirring in my curvaceous core.
Shit.
I’d never thought much about my sexuality, honestly. It was fair to say that I had been attracted to women rather than men, but the attraction had been mild. More than anything else, I guess I had been undersexed. It just hadn’t been all that important to me. My intellectual pursuits had wholly dominated my life.
In consequence, that damned FedEx guy had probably gotten more of a rise out of me than I could remember experiencing. He had looked maybe twenty-five, and although he probably wasn’t quite as callow as the typical grad student of my acquaintance – having to scratch for your own worms tends to mature people in ways that college life does not – he wouldn’t be far above the mark. Conversing with him would be, in all likelihood, downright tedious. He was certainly unlearned and, far more regrettable, he was probably even earnest.
But my body was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that conversation was not the critical dish on this particular menu. He was cute. And that, somehow, that was a matter of great, even urgent, significance to the part of my brain that's responsible for responding to stimuli.
The part of my brain that remained capable of scientific inquiry – or, at very least, of simple logic – was forced to conclude from this evidence that whatever was flowing through my bloodstream was changing both the orientation and intensity of my sexual desires.
To which the judgmental part of my brain relied, “Fucking splendid!”
When Janet came home, she could tell something was troubling me. “How’s the girl whirl goin’ for you today?”
I mumbled something. I hadn’t told Janet how much I was coming to enjoy all things feminine. I was embarrassed by it, really. But my feelings towards Janet were also becoming tangled. We were friends and colleagues. I had worked with her for decades. And, at the same time, part of me wanted to react to her like she was Mom. I wanted to confide in her.
She is also sharp as hell, so she saw lots of things I wasn’t eager to talk about. She responded to my mumble by saying, “You can keep tryin’ to fool me, I s’pose, but really, it’ll just set you back. You know you’re lovin’ it. I know you’re lovin’ it. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s not even a neutral thing. It’s great.”
“If they’d turned me into a goat, you’d cheer when I started eating grass,” I grumbled.
“I would, too,” she said cheerfully. “Goats gotta goat. Girls gotta girl. Why fight it?”
“Oh, come on, Janet!!! That’s absurd! A noun should not follow a word that’s being used as a stand-in for ‘must.’”
“I’m a literature professor,” she said archly. “We get to take liberties. And you’re changing the subject.”
“At least I’m not making the subject an object. Anyhow, will you still cheer if I turn into a bimbo?”
“Oh, I dunno. . . . It’d probably be great for enrollment. We could get the college to change the name of your endowed chair so that you could be the Bodacious Professor of Linguistics. You’d have heaps of strappin’ young men trying their very hardest to learn . . . ah . . . ya know. Words ‘n shit.”
“Janet,” I growled.
She threw up her hands. “I know, I know. But seriously . . . have you noticed any signs of cognitive decline? ‘Cuz I haven’t.”
I thought about that. I didn’t feel intellectually focused. At all. But . . . No, I wasn’t any less sharp. I shook my head. “I still seem to be okay when I’m thinking about things like the aliens and the fate of the human race.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she responded. “Glad to know we’re still in good hands. So, s’pose you tell me what’s got you in a funk?” she asked.
I turned beet red and said, “A guy just checked me out. And . . . I . . . I”
I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t say it. Instead, I burst into tears, ran into my bedroom, slammed the door and flopped down on my bed, face down.
Seriously. I did all of those things, in the prescribed order, like a distressed debutante. God in heaven, what’s WRONG with me?
Janet left me alone for a bit and, amazingly, I fell asleep. Again. When I woke up, the shadows were long, and Janet was rubbing my back gently.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said softly.
Even she felt it. She certainly wasn’t treating me like a colleague.
It should have hurt. Instead, I had a sense of deep peace. Of security. Mom was watching out for me. “Hey,” I said back.
“You okay?”
I thought about it. Was I okay? “I just don’t feel like I’m in control. If I’m not on the verge of tears, I’m giggling. My body’s reactions to . . . any sort of stimulus. You name it. It’s overwhelming me.”
“Your emotions are stronger now, Honey,” she said, soothingly. “How much of that is female, versus all the crazy in your system? Who the hell knows? But that outburst was pretty typical of a girl in puberty, and they have less goin’ on than you do. Cut yourself some slack.”
She rubbed my back some more, not pushing. The shadows grew longer. It was nice.
“Janet?” I said, making it a question.
“Uh huh?”
“Do you read People Magazine?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “For the articles, ya know?”
I could hear the smile in her voice. “Do I look like anyone . . . anyone you’ve seen? In the magazine, I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” she assured me.
“And?”
“Do you know who Margot Robbie is?”
“Ah . . . no,” I confessed. “Movies?”
“Yeah, movies,” she agreed. “You know? Fiction, but with pictures that, well . . . move. Anyhow, you look a bit like her – more’n a bit, I guess. In the face, anyhow.”
I rolled over and looked up at her. “Anyone else?”
“No one livin’ comes to mind,” she replied, a bit warily.
“Someone who’s died?”
She shook her head. “Nooooo . . . . Not exactly.”
“That sounds pretty mysterious,” I probed. “C’mon. Give!”
She looked down at me, sprawled on the bed in all my dramatic bodaciousness, and asked, “Have you ever considered changin’ your last name to ‘Rabbit?’”
To be continued. Bodaciously.
Author’s note: One of the best things about this site is the wonderful and supportive community that hangs out here, including so many incredibly creative and talented writers who are willing to help one another be better. Rachel Moore and Angela Rasch — both far better and more accomplished writers than I am — have been extremely helpful on Maximum Warp, and I would be remiss if I did not give them both a big shout-out. With respect to this chapter, Rachel provided inspiration when I was struggling with it, as well as a critical metaphor. So it’s fair to say that she literally helped me metaphorically. :-) Thank-you!!!
Maximum Warp
Chapter 6: Transwarp Drive
“Five foot five, 37-24-36. And, at a guess, biologically, you’re around 17. Congratulations.” Janet was shaking her head and smiling. “You are, officially, the youngest, most bodacious professor in the entire history of linguistics. They’re going to have to widen your endowed chair so that it will accommodate your . . . ahhh . . . endowments.”
It was 30 days exactly since the aliens had injected my butt – then, a substantially less substantial part of my anatomy – with a compound which had transformed me into what Janet described as a mash-up between Margot Robbie and Jessica Rabbit. I had to look up both of those women (one real, one not) before I had a clue what she was talking about.
Of course, Margot Robbie is – and Jessica Rabbit always was and forever would be – rather older than 17. Seventeen was still a minor. Not good. But also . . . not five. Assuming the damned termites hadn’t fudged on the timeline, the changes triggered by their magic juice were now complete. So hopefully – hopefully!!! – I would get no younger.
I had flowing golden hair down to my ample posterior and had graduated to a 30-DD bra. Janet, of course, didn’t think “graduate” was the right term.
“Nah, ‘graduate’ doesn’t cover it, darlin’. That’s baccalaureate shit. When you are talkin’ about such a truly impressive pair of candidates, It’s more like a Ph Double-D.”
I had drained my bank account by the simple expedient of transferring everything to my checking account and writing a check to Janet for the full amount. My retirement account was inaccessible, and I might never be able to access those funds. On the other hand, I’d just been given forty or so extra years to make it back, so I refused to get bent out of shape about it. Identity was going to be a problem, and we hadn’t figured out how to resolve it yet. But at least I wasn’t destitute. So long as I didn’t piss off Janet!
We decided to celebrate the end of my 30-day transition with a day of primping and shopping. This was not as frivolous as it sounds, since I had no clothes that still fit. Which was why our first stop was an expensive lingerie boutique where I acquired suitable architectural support for my weightier concerns.
I had my hair done. Tidied, really, because the new me liked it long, however impractical. Got a mani-pedi. Had a lesson in makeup from a gen-u-ine professional. Got my ears pierced. Got clothes and shoes that suited my age and, er, pulchritude. The details do not bear repeating, though I enjoyed myself.
I had stopped pretending – to either myself or to Janet – that I wasn’t loving it. I felt strong and healthy, vibrant and – a complete novelty for me – sexy. It was still confusing to me, but there was simply no doubt that my very female body was strongly attracted to what was now the opposite sex. I found that I had to discipline myself, so that I was not following good-looking guys with my eyes. This attraction was apparently reciprocated, at least if I was understanding the signals correctly.
“Yeah, no, “ Janet said. “As a matter of fact, they aren’t staring at you because they are impressed by your academic credentials.”
Janet enjoyed herself too. She had never had the experience of shopping with a daughter (or, at this point, granddaughter), and she had fun. But it was a long day and she was flagging by the end of it.
By 4:30 we were back home and I was – finally – decently dressed in clothes and underwear that fit. The chime of the doorbell interrupted our discussion of what to make for dinner. I hopped up, disgustingly fresh and eager to spare Janet having to get out of her comfy recliner. “I’ll get it,” I told her.
“Expectin’ someone?” Janet asked, no doubt wondering at my eagerness.
I shook my head and smiled. But I prudently checked through the peephole before opening the door, only to pull myself up short.
Police.
I was still thinking through what to do when the officer hammed on the door with his fist. We were clearly at home, so I opened the door, leaving the chain in place. Mid-thirties, athletic build. Short-cropped medium brown hair, icy pale blue eyes, strong chin, straight nose, firm lips . . . .
Focus!
I had an inspiration. My eyes grew wide. Using my sweetest, most surprised voice, I said, “What seems to be the problem, officer?”
I remember a time when one of the coaches was talking with me while we were walking into a lecture, and he failed to duck under a lintel that was built in the early 19th century for a shorter race of men. The expression on the coach’s face just before he dropped was mirrored in the Officer’s face as he stood at the door. Very satisfactory!
“I, uhhh, ummm . . . .” He was stammering.
I allowed a look of concern to cross my face. “Are you alright? Do you need some water?”
He coughed. “Ah . . . no . . . no, I’m, err . . . fine. Thank you! But, ah, I was wondering whether I might speak with Professor Seldon.”
My concern deepened. “She’s resting right now,” I said sincerely. Which was easier to do because, as far as I knew, my statement was true. “She’s not in some sort of trouble, is she?” My eyes grew wider still, and the hint of distress penetrated my voice.
He was quick to reassure me. Such a gentleman! “No, no. No trouble at all! We just hoped she might be able to help us. With an investigation.”
“Really! Oh, I’m sure she’ll be happy to help! If you leave me a card, I’ll have her contact you as soon as she’s up!”
He frowned at that. “It’s really very urgent. I won’t be a moment.”
Distress was back in my face. “Oh, I can’t possibly disturb her,” I breathed. “She would be so upset with me! Please, I promise I’ll have her call!”
He glowered a moment, but my distress was clearly working. “All right,” he relented. He pulled a card from his wallet, wrote a number on it, and said, “please have her call me at this number. Tonight, if possible. May I ask what your name is?”
“Oh! I’m Jessica.”
He was still looking at me, pen poised. The ritual was rather obviously incomplete.
I thought furiously. “Jessica Lapine.” It was the best I could come up with in a crunch. “I’ll have her call you, Officer . . . “ I looked at his card. “Officer Wolf. Thank you for stopping by.”
“Thank you, Miss Lapine.” He stepped away and I closed the door.
I rested my head against it for a moment while the butterflies in my stomach settled, listening for the sounds of Officer Wolf’s departure. When I heard him drive away, I turned ‘round to see Janet regarding me sardonically.
“Was that off the cuff, or have you been practicin’?”
I flushed. “I was . . . improvising. How’d I do?”
“Well, I couldn’t see what you might be doing with your front side, but it was pretty convincin’ from the backside!”
I opened my eyes wide in innocence and said, “Is there a problem, Professor?”
She chuckled. Then guffawed. “Okay, girl! But don’t try those tricks on policewomen!”
“Perish, the thought!” I said in mock horror. But then I sobered up, fast. “I’ve only bought a bit of time, and we’d better figure out what to do with it.”
“You thinkin’ it’s that little shit doctor causin’ trouble?”
“The world is filled with little shits,” I replied, “but he still tops my list of suspects. He thinks you were trying some scam, and trying to pass me off as . . . well . . as me, I guess.”
“No way you can pass as you,” she responded.
“You know how crazy that sounds?”
She just cocked an eyebrow, her look taking in my present superabundance.
“Fine,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know a good lawyer?”
“No, but then, I’ve never seen a pink unicorn, either. I s’pose they might exist anyway. Do you?”
“I have to deal with doctors from time to time; I don’t have to put up with lawyers.”
We looked at each other.
“Google?” I suggested.
She shrugged. “Sure, why not? Works for plumbers and electricians, usually.” She went into the room I was using to sleep in, which was normally the study, and turned on her computer.
“You can do all that on your phone, you know,” I commented.
“Oh, so now that you’re sweet seventeen you know technology?” she snorted. “Your pair of double D’s was less surprising than that’d be!”
Ten minutes later she was placing a call to The Law Offices of Justin Abel. Why him? Because he was the first entry. Sometimes it pays to have the right name. Was Mr. Able available? He was.
I only heard Janet’s side of the conversation. She told him that the police had stopped by and wanted to interview her about an investigation, and she wanted legal advice. No; the situation was likely complicated, and yes, she needed legal representation. No, she didn’t want to discuss it further over the phone. Of course; she could be there in fifteen minutes.
And so, twenty minutes later, we were sharing a conference room with a lawyer. One of those hundred ways you can tell that you are most definitely not having a good day. Justin Abel was probably in his late thirties; he was a bit shorter than I had been a month ago, though he had more bulk. Bulk that was, I thought, nicely distributed . . . .
Stop that!!!
Dark hair, Clark Kent glasses, a mobile face and a booming voice completed the picture. Well almost.
“Professor Seldon! Good to meet you!” he boomed.
After two beats, Janet said, dryly, “Over here, Mr. Abel. This way? I’m the one who looks old enough to belong in front of a lecture hall.”
His mobile face may have shown the barest hint of blush as he quickly tore his gaze away from me. “I’m very sorry, Professor!”
“It’s all right,” she replied. “I expect I’d better get used to it.” As an aside to me, she said, “You were right. Malthus.”
“What?” he asked.
“That’s my line,” I said, joining the conversation. “Though in this case it’s ‘who,’ not ‘what.’”
“Never mind that now,” Janet said. “I’m here for some legal advice. Your Google ad said you do a free consultation?”
He nodded, firmly keeping his eyes fixed on Janet. “Right. You tell me what the issue is and, if I think I can help you, we can discuss fees, expenses and all that good stuff. But first . . . If you want our discussion to be privileged and confidential, we can’t have a third party present. However lovely,” he added gallantly, only flicking his dark eyes in my general direction.
“We’re both going to need representation, if that helps,” I said.
“I’d need signed conflict waivers if you want me to represent you both,” he cautioned.
But we had no trouble with that, so it wasn’t an impediment. Once that paperwork was signed, he said, “who wants to tell me what’s going on?”
I looked at Janet. She looked at me. We hadn’t really figured out what we were going to say beforehand. Awkward!
Finally, Janet looked at the lawyer – Mr. Able – and said, “Well, I think that the police want to talk to me about a missin’ person – my colleague, Professor Wainwright.”
“Why you?” he asked.
“Umm . . . Well . . . .” she fell silent.
Able was looking puzzled.
I said, “Okay, let me try. Professor Wainwright took off hiking on the Appalachian Trail after the semester ended. He isn’t scheduled to be back until August . . . .” I stopped. This was not going to be easy to explain.
“So what makes you think he’s missing?” Able inquired.
“He’s not,” Janet and I said in unison.
“Why would the police think he’s missing?”
“Doctor Bell might have suggested he was,” Janet said uneasily.
“Bell? . . . Oh wait! You mean Quibble?”
We nodded again. It’s a small community.
Able looked at us, cocked his head, and said, “we can play fifty questions, and I’m happy to. I like puzzles and all. I like ‘em better when I’m on the clock and it’s your dime, of course. But it would probably save some time if you just told me the story.”
“I’m worried you won’t believe it,” I said.
“Trust me,” he responded, “I’ve seen and heard a lot of things in this town.”
Janet clearly decided that it was better to just bite the bullet. “Okay, well, Professor Wainwright was abducted by space aliens and turned into a pretty girl.”
“Uh huh,” Able said, noncommittally. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with you, would it?” he asked, looking my direction.
“Well . . . .”
“Thought so,” he said. “And I imagine you told Quibble and he maybe didn’t buy it?”
We nodded.
“Well, I’m not seeing a problem . . . .”
But Able was interrupted by a pounding on the outside door to his suite. He said, “Excuse me a moment, ladies.”
He came back a moment later, followed by Officer Wolf. “Officer, please have a seat,” Able said briskly. “Ladies, I advise you not to say anything just now.”
Able sat at the head of the table and said, “Officer Wolf, please explain why you are here.”
I was blushing maraschino cherry red, having been caught out in my little subterfuge. And I thought I’d done so well!
“We are investigating the possible disappearance of James Wainwright, a colleague of Professor Seldon’s. We thought she might have information that would assist in our investigation.”
Able cocked his head and looked puzzled. He had a good ‘puzzled’ look that he appeared to deploy tactically. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” Officer Wolf responded. He was countering with a “I’ve got a badge and you don’t” look. It was good, but maybe not as smooth as Able’s “puzzled.” This could be fun.
“Well, of course you are,” Able responded, sounding reasonable and patient. “You asked one, then I asked one. So I guess we’re both asking questions here. How special is that? But if you want answers to your questions, you might want to work with me. Just sayin’.” He smiled seraphically.
“Alright, what do you really want to know?” Wolf growled.
“Is my client suspected of wrongdoing, and if so, why?” Able responded promptly.
The Wolf bared his teeth and said, “Not at this time.”
Able shifted his mobile features into an expression that was equal parts “delighted’ and ‘pleased as punch,’ and started to stand up. “Outstanding! Nice of you to stop by, Officer.”
Wolf watched the performance with a raised eyebrow. “I’d still like a word with your client.”
Able sat down again. “I repeat: Why?”
Wolf threw up his hands. “Fine! An informant indicated that Professor Seldon was with a person who was falsely claiming to be Professor Wainwright. Second, Professor Wainwright’s car is parked in Professor Seldon’s garage. Finally, bank records indicate that Professor Seldon cashed a large check from Professor Wainwright that essentially drained his bank accounts.”
Put that way, I guess it did sound pretty damning.
But Able said, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” He sounded astonished. Looked it, too.
“It’s enough for us to want to ask your client some questions.”
Able looked over at us and smiled. “Based on what you told me, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t answer his questions. Fire away, Officer. I’ll throw up a red light if I think you’ve crossed a line.”
It was my turn to be astonished. We’d barely spoken to him, but he was game to have us tell the story? Huh?
“Professor Seldon,” Wolf said, “Do you know the present whereabouts of your colleague, James Wainwright?”
“I do,” she responded, eyes twinkling.
“Will you tell me where he is?”
“Of course. This young lady is Professor Wainwright. Her appearance has changed as a result of an encounter with space aliens while hikin’. Shit happens when your hikin’, ya know. Pretty much why I don’t do it.”
“Professor, this is no time for jokes,” Wolf barked.
Janet gave him the basilisk glare of a full professor. “The truth, Officer, can be a funny thing. Damned funny, sometimes. No fault of mine.”
“Where did you get the check that you deposited drawn from Professor Wainwright’s bank account?”
“From Professor Wainwright, obviously.”
“The person you claim is Professor Wainwright, or the real Professor Wainwright?”
“You ever met James Wainwright, boy?” she challenged.
“That’s ‘Officer,’” he said forcefully, “and, no, I haven’t.”
“Well, Officer Boy, I’ve known James Wainwright for decades. My closest friend. So at least be open to the possibility that I know what the hell I’m talkin’ about and you don’t know Jack!”
“Or James, in this case,” I added helpfully.
“Let me try this again,” Wolf said. “Did the person who gave you the check look like Professor Wainwright?”
“Absolutely.” Janet’s face radiated sincerity.
When I’d handed her the check I had been around 5’9” with a pretty face, blond hair and breasts that, while not approaching their current peak performance, were still competitive. I was wearing proper makeup, a skirt and a “top” that Janet described as “cute.” But Officer Wolf’s question had been poorly worded, and Janet had spotted the flaw instantly. I am James Wainwright, and when I handed Janet the check, that’s what I had looked like.
“How did Professor Wainwright’s car get in your garage?”
“He drove it there. Natch. Did you have a warrant to go on my property and look in my garage?”
A bit defensively, Wolf said, “This is important! Don’t quibble!”
Janet dramatically recoiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I can’t stand that man!”
“What?” Wolf said, confused.
For the second time that evening, I intervened to say, “Not ‘what,’ ‘who.’”
“Who?” he said.
“Who.”
He tried again. “Who’s the who?”
Looking dangerously amused, Janet surprised me by saying, “Cindy Lou.”
“What?” I said.
“No, ‘Who.’ ‘Cindy Lou Who,’” she responded. At my blank look, she added, “Fiction. You. Need. To. Read!”
I sat up straighter, which had the unintended secondary effect of causing small adjustments to the cantilevered portions of my new anatomy. The tertiary effect was that I suddenly had the close attention of both men in the room.
Well, file that data under both “interesting” and “useful!”
I said, “Weak sallies at literary humor aside, I think my colleague was initially referring to your informant, Dr. Bell.”
Trying manfully to keep his eyes someplace where they might possibly belong, Wolf could not formulate a response beyond, “huh?”
I decided to take a shot at persuasion. I leaned forward and said, in my most reasonable voice, “Officer, based on everything you’ve said, Dr. Quentin Bell – Quibble – is obviously your informant. I can tell you what happened on both occasions that Professor Seldon met with Dr. Bell at his office in the past three weeks, because I was there. Did the doctor describe the person who claimed to be Professor Wainwright?”
I gave him my most earnest look. Tried to layer on sweet as well, but I was stretching my abilities. By nature I am never sweet and I scrupulously avoid earnestness in all its tedious forms.
“That’s . . . I’m not supposed to reveal that.” His efforts to keep his eyes on my face appeared to be taking a bit of a toll.
“If he told you the whole story,” I continued, “which I’m just sure he did, I assume you heard that the person that he described in the first encounter looked and sounded enough like Wainwright that Quibble didn’t initially question his identity. But the person was a couple inches shorter, over a decade younger, and had blonde hair.”
Looking a bit uncomfortable, Wolf said, “there was one other big difference . . . .”
“A renovation involving indoor plumbing, right?”
“Uh . . . .”
“And this person said he had been injected with a substance that was making him young and female, right?” I pressed.
“That was the story,” Wolf confirmed, slathering skepticism.
“And then just one week later, Professor Seldon arrived with someone who appeared to be a woman, and was probably in her mid-thirties, right?”
“Uhhhh . . . “
“And when you show up ten days later, you find a woman who looks a lot younger than that at Dr. Seldon’s house. Isn’t that consistent with what Quibble was told?”
“It fits the story,” he said, thereby confirming the source of his information. He added, “But the story’s an obvious fabrication – just like your name, and your claim that Dr. Seldon was resting!”
“Well, I’ve got to call myself something, since people don’t seem to be willing to call me ‘James Wainwright!’”
“You think you’re the only person who speaks French, Miss Rabbit?”
My face flushed bright red again. Oops.
Observing the dramatic shift in my coloring, Janet said, “Maybe you shoulda called yourself ‘Scarlet’ instead of ‘Lapine.’” But after a brief pause, she reconsidered. “On second thought, that would just lead our good officer to grill you about lead pipes in the conservatory.”
Ignoring my own puzzled look, Janet looked at Wolf. “And for the record, I was resting.”
“Not so hard that you weren’t both on your way here within fifteen minutes! I followed you!”
“Well obviously, I finished resting,” Janet said.
“It’s not like I said she was in a coma,” I added.
Able broke in. “Officer, the ladies have told you what they believe to be the truth. Now, I’ve got a few things for you to ponder on your way back to the station – a journey you will be taking shortly, and alone.”
Able had a pretty good glower too.
“You haven’t indicated that Professor Wainwright has lodged any sort of complaint about his money or his car. In the absence of a complaint, you don’t have any reason to disbelieve Professor Seldon when she says that Wainwright gave her the check and left his car in her garage.”
“Apart from the fact that she’s claiming that the girl over there is Professor Wainwright!” Wolf said, with some heat.
“Sure,” Able responded. “But here’s the thing. Even if she’s mistaken about that, there’s no evidence that Professor Wainwright is actually missing. He went off hiking on the Appalachian Trail. If you don’t believe the ladies’ story, then for all you know Wainwright is right where he ought to be. He’s not due back until August. If you aren’t willing to wait for him to return, you can always try to find him yourself. You know: Take a hike?”
Wolf said, “While this young . . . person . . . goes around saying she’s Wainwright?”
Able re-deployed “astonished.” He did that even better than he did “puzzled.” “You aren’t seriously suggesting that it’s a crime to impersonate a professor?”
Wolf got up, looking annoyed. “Fine. Lie. Joke. Obstruct my investigation. But I’ll be back with a warrant, and we’ll see who’s laughing then!”
“Spare us the theater,” Able said, unimpressed. “You don’t even have any evidence that a crime’s been committed, much less any evidence that either of these ladies committed one. So, what’re you gonna do? Huff and puff? Just so you know, this building’s made of brick.”
Officer Wolf gnashed his teeth. I mean, literally gnashed them. I’d only heard of the expression; I’d never seen anyone try it. It looked tough on the molars.
He managed to say, “I’ll be talking to all of you later!” before storming out.
Able leaned back in his swivel rocker, half-closed his eyes and reprised his self-satisfied smile. “Damned shame I didn’t get time to work out fees before that happened, but it was so much fun, I’m almost happy to have done it for free. Almost.”
“Thank you for your help – and for believing us,” I said. He had, objectively, been fantastic.
He opened his eyes fully, turned them on me and displayed a smile that would make a shark proud. “Oh, I think your story’s completely bonkers. But that just made my job more fun!”
Janet looked at me and said, “No pink unicorn, remember?”
“Ayup,” I concurred. “Why’d you help, if you thought we were lying?”
He shook his head. “Never said you were lying. I said your story’s bonkers, which – you’ve got to admit – it absolutely is. But I’m agnostic as to whether it’s true or false. Doesn’t affect how I deal with the police.”
Janet looked indignant. “Liars get equal treatment?”
“The guy with the badge has to have some sort of evidence that a crime’s been committed before he can just start asking a bunch of questions and acting threatening. And he should have obtained search warrants before checking out your garage or looking at bank records. He dodged your question about that. So, even if you are lying – and understand, I’m completely agnostic about that – he has to follow proper procedures, and I’ll absolutely paddle him if he doesn’t.”
I allowed my right eyebrow to float lazily to the ionosphere of my high forehead. “I might enjoy watching that.”
Well, that finally got our cool lawyer’s face to turn rhubarb red. Good!
We gave Mr. Able a retainer, signed some paperwork, and headed out. The police had been dispatched, and if we were lucky they wouldn’t be back. In which case, we would not need further Abel assistance!
But Janet was beat. We ordered some take-out, and after we had eaten she took herself off to an early bed. “See if you can keep the wolf from the door,” she said.
It had been a long day. The month was up and I now had reason to hope that whatever shot I had been given had done what it was going to do. I had gone shopping and bought real clothes, for the person I was now going to be. I had faced accusations and lawyers, and had been the focus of a lot of attention. By rights, I should have been exhausted too.
But I was too tense to go to bed, or read, or do any of the things I normally would do to relax at the end of a day. I was full of weird energy; I couldn’t sit still. Part of me wanted to go out again. Get in my car; go somewhere. Do something. If I didn’t go out, I might go crazy. The operative word, it seemed, was “GO!”
But Jessica Lapin, or Scarlet, or whatever had no driver’s license. No identity at all. I couldn’t even walk into a bar or a nightclub. I looked like I was seventeen. A well-developed seventeen, but seventeen nonetheless.
I stopped dead in my tracks – the ones that were pacing back and forth over Janet’s oatmeal-brown carpet like a caged cheetah.
What was possessing me? Why was I even thinking about going to bars or nightclubs? I was seldom inside a bar, and I’m not sure I had ever been in a club. I don’t know what they even look like inside!
I thought about the looks I got while I was shopping in the mall. From the boys. From the men. About the ones I looked at. I thought about Officer Wolf and lawyer Able, their eyes following my movements. I thought about Able’s well-built frame, his mobile face. All day, I had felt it – The warm feeling, the tense feeling . . . the rush of being desirable, of being desired.
Of desiring.
That was why I felt caged; why I wanted to go out. I’d been driving a run-down, but still-serviceable Taurus for years, and I’d suddenly been given the keys to a shiny new Maserati MC20. Something deep inside was just itching to get her on the long dark highway, put pedal to the metal and see what she had under that sleek and curvy exterior . . . .
“I am James Marshall Wainwright,” I told myself firmly. I thought it was firmly, anyway. It sounded firm? Kind of? But, maybe a little hoarse. “I’m a scholar. A respected academic . . . .”
My hips swayed. “Sure, Honey,” they cooed. “Tell us all about possessive animate nouns!”
“I have written three books . . .” Firm. Surely firm?
My breasts rearranged themselves in their lacy nests, snuggling in even more tightly. “Talk to me, sugar,” they whispered, voices low and sultry. “The alignment of case forms, right? . . . . You were saying?”
“Scores of peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals . . . .” I was maybe not sounding quite so convincing?
My lovely, painted nails buried themselves in the waterfall of my hair, causing the silky mass to shift, caressing my back, filling the air with a clean scent, the smell of honeysuckle on a warm summer evening. Each long tendril sighed, “explain the drift towards the invariable word, old man. Do it. We love it when you talk dirty!”
I shuddered. I had no reply, firm or otherwise, to the sensations that were overwhelming me.
Who am I?
I stepped into the bathroom and faced the mirror. A mirror that now showed perfect features, Hair that cried out to be played with . . . lips almost begging to be kissed. Eyes filled with longing. With desire.
I reached up and slowly unbuttoned my sky-blue silk top, each movement revealing more and more of my ripe, full breasts, flushed and straining against the pale pink cups that held them in beds of delicate lace. I hung my top on the hook by the door, raised my arms, and in a motion that was becoming increasingly natural, unhooked my bra. The movement of soft fabric across tender flesh caused me to shiver. My black skirt followed, then the panties.
Naked, and lovely. So lovely! Me?
Who am I?
I turned on the shower and stepped in. The feel of hot water sluicing over my sensitive skin was at once sensual and electric. I just stood for a moment, head bowed, feeling the hot water penetrate my hair, massage my scalp.
I soaped up my hands. By habit, I went first to scrub my chest. As my soapy hands slid effortlessly across my breasts, I was overwhelmed by a wave of pleasure so intense that my knees felt weak. There was a bench in the shower. I sat. Safety . . . first.
I dedicated myself to ensuring that each breast was thoroughly and completely clean, sparing no effort in my hygiene. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, right? No; that’s not quite right. Next to heaven, maybe? Certainly, it was next to impossible. Keep at it!
The waves of pleasure were stronger now, more intense, pulsing like the cascade of the shower. It was all I could do not to cry out when my fingers tweaked my areolas, sending me into a spasm of pleasure. I whimpered softly.
My vagina was aching, warm. My right hand dropped down, exploring. I touched my new lips, and found myself panting. I inserted a finger. Two. Pressure built, pushed, throbbing, pulsing. I was shaking, biting my tongue to keep from groaning, from crying. My fingers moved, pushing . . . probing. Inside, I was warm and wet. My hungry fingers touched a button of . . . something? Fire! Aaaaaagh!!! From the very core of my body, an explosion of pleasure hit, pulled back, hit again. Hammering me, battering me, turning hardened defenses into liquid . . . . And again!
I might have stayed in that zone of pleasure forever, but Janet’s hot water tank was nowhere near as large as my need. The water was no longer hot, then no longer warm . . . before it went straight to frigid, I managed to get on my feet long enough to shut off the water. I was shaking; weak. I felt boneless, my limbs loose.
I stepped out of the shower and looked at the eldritch figure in the mirror, a water nymph wreathed in steamy mist, full, moist lips curled in a smile of pure triumph. “My name,” I said to the mirror, “is JESSICA. You got that, old man?”
It was a long while before I was able to sleep. Even with the aid of a blow-dryer, my hair takes forever to be dry enough for sleeping. But I loved it anyway. I slipped into a long, midnight blue nightgown in a sheer nylon fabric, held up by thin, sexy lingerie straps, and slid under the covers, the smile still on my lips.
I woke up the next morning to the ping of a text message from my phone. I no longer needed to find a pair of glasses before I could read it.
“We will reach orbit in three days. Provide meeting coordinates.”
The wry old Professor in the back of my head said, “Showtime, girlfriend!”
To be continued. With a smile.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 7: Prime Directive
“Oh, Lord. I’m totally screwed, aren't I?” Janet, who had just emerged from her shower, comfortably dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts, was looking with dismay at the coffee, toast, eggs, bacon and fresh orange juice I had laid out for our breakfast.
“What?” I said, sounding innocent, but knowing I was guilty.
“Jessica, I’ve known you for longer’n you’ve existed, remember? If you’re being this nice, I’m screwed. I just don’t know which way yet.” She sat down and took a long, fortifying pull on her industrial-strength coffee, never taking her eyes off me.
“I can’t just do something nice for you, out of simple gratitude and the goodness of my heart?” I was working on a sweet and innocent look. It hadn’t felt convincing yesterday when I tried it on Officer Wolf, and Janet lacked the biologically-motivated reasons why he might have been willing to let my subpar performance slide.
As she proceeded to demonstrate. “Can you? Sure. Would you? Well, you might, but only if you thought about it. Which you probably wouldn’t, ‘cuz you’re always noodlin’ about twenty thousand other things. So . . . why are you butterin’ me up like a bad French pastry?”
“Why a bad French pastry?”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Nekultury bumpkin! ‘Cuz good French pastries already have enough butter to kill you twice over. Now don’t try to change the subject!”
I sighed and gave up my attempt at sweet innocence. It clearly needed more work. “Okay, okay! I’m feeling guilty. I pulled you into this . . . .”
She cut me off. “Whoa, there! I didn’t get pulled into anythin.’ I jumped with both feet. I had nothin’ planned for this summer, and I’ll confess I was kinda mopin’ about that. I wouldn’t have missed this for an all-expenses paid trip to Madagascar!”
“Madagascar! Why on earth would you want to go there?”
“Lemur fetish. But let’s stay on task here, Jessica.” She took a bite of her breakfast – she’s a practical woman and there’s no sense letting a perfectly good bribe go to waste – before adding, “What’s got your panties in a wad?”
“Well, for starters,” I said, “Let’s talk about Officer Wolf. Like Abel suggested before we left, everything’s fine right now, but only because there’s nothing to show I’m missing. James. Whatever. But come August, when ‘James’ doesn’t show up, everything changes. And because I was thoughtless enough to park my car in your garage and cut you that check, you are probably the one and only suspect.”
“Don’t be borrowin’ trouble. We’ve got six weeks. Anything can happen. I mean, look at what's changed in the last six weeks!”
I thought about that. Could I ask the aliens to change me back, assuming we were somehow able to complete the mission? Did I want to?
I didn’t, and that took no thought at all. I felt better than I ever had . . . and, I thought with a touch of guilty recollection, a whole lot sexier. My new body was amazing, and if the changes went deeper than that — and they did — I was learning to adjust. I suddenly had a future again, and it looked just as bright as the damned dean was always blathering about.
Going back to my old life might be the hardest thing I've ever done. But if that’s what it took to keep Janet out of jail, it would also be the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
I decided not to raise that possibility. Instead I said, “True, though we should work on a plan to deal with it. But the other issue is the aliens themselves.” I showed her the text I had received this morning.
“Sombitch!” she said. “You know, it shoulda felt real before this, what with your turnin’ into a human Venus Flytrap an’ all. But somehow this brings it home.”
I nodded. Certainly it felt like an immediate problem now, where before it seemed like a hypothetical. “Janet, we don’t even have a good plan for how to get to talk to someone about buying uranium. I don’t know how the aliens will react to that. I want to make sure you’re not injured.”
She looked at me steadily as she finished chewing on a bite of toast. With unusual precision, she picked up her glass of juice, took a sip, and set it back down. It made a sharp, final “rap” as it hit the table top, firm as a judge’s gavel. “Well, that explains the nice breakfast. You’re thinkin’ of goin’ to meet with the termites alone, aren’t you?” She didn’t sound angry, or hurt. Really almost . . . curious? Clinical?
I wasn’t sure where she was coming from. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I’ve already put you in danger!”
“Jessica. Honey. You need to listen, ‘cuz I’m only gonna say this once.” Her voice was soft. Conversational. “You – James, Jessica, whatever – have been my closest friend for thirty years. Might’ve been more’n that, once, if you’d ever got your nose outta your books long enough to notice me. There is no chance – none, zero, zilch – that I’m gonna let you walk into danger while I sit at home wonderin’ what’s happenin’ to you. I’ll be damned if I play Aunt Polly to your Tom Sawyer!”
I was still trying to process what she had just said when she barked out, “YOU GOT THAT, GIRL?”
I flinched, and found to my dismay that my shoulders had involuntarily hunched, as if to ward off an attack. I tried to take a deep breath, causing my ample bust to heave, but it was too ragged to unjangle my nerves. I blurted out, “What do you mean, “might’ve been more?”
“What I said!” Now she sounded exasperated. “The supply of men who can handle a smart, opinionated woman with multiple advanced degrees is depressingly finite, and I’m a demandin’ woman.” Her face and tone softened. “You were about the only one who mighta made the cut.”
I just gaped at her. “I had no idea . . . .” All of those years. All of those long, fascinating conversations. “You might have said something!”
She looked astonished, then amused. She started to chuckle, which developed into a guffaw. Pretty soon she was laughing so hard she was holding her sides.
I was, I admit, indignant. I tried to glower, then remembered that she had said my old glower on my new face looked “cute.” Officer Wolf had gnashed his teeth – one of those beautiful Old English words whose silent, vestigial letters serve no present purpose other than to remind us of their antiquity – but that had looked foolish even with his naturally stern visage. As Jessica, I was reduced to squeaking, “What?!!!” I suppose I might have stamped my delicate foot, but I couldn’t imagine how that would help.
“I’m just imaginin’ what James Wainwright would have done if I’d sidled up to him in the faculty lounge and offered to give him a personal tutorial on the Scarlet Letter! ‘Hey big boy! Let me show you my Hawthornes!’” Her laughter continued unabated.
“What would people have thought!”
She finished chuckling and just shook her head. “Jessica-James, even I figured out that I didn’t – and shouldn’t – give a shit what other people thought about how I lead my life. I was a late bloomer, so it took me ‘til I was thirty. Why you still care is beyond me.”
I looked down, feeling the flush return to my cheeks. Remembering. Thinking hard. Finally I met her eyes again. They were no longer full of laughter, but there was, I thought, affection mixed in with the exasperation. “I don’t know what to say. I was oblivious. I was always so focused on my scholarship . . . .”
“Oh, my God! Stop the presses! Really?!!”
This time, even I had to chuckle, though more in rue than in mirth. “Yeah, I guess that was pretty obvious. But . . . there was never anyone else, Janet. Just scholarship. I thought . . . well. I thought it was enough. All I needed. Or wanted.”
“How ‘bout now?” she asked, her voice soft.
I looked down again, idly stirring my black coffee with a spoon, the deep red polish on my nails glowing softly in the morning sunlight. “Just before that alien showed up, I was staring at my campfire, feeling sorry for myself. All my ‘penetrating’ insights, my ‘brilliant’ books and ‘seminal’ articles, didn’t matter. The dean wasn’t going to kick me out, but she’d moved on. The new people were the future, I was just an old and increasingly grouchy relic.”
“Well-spoken, though,” she said with a twinkle. “Measured. Thoughtful.”
“Qualities that would be a great comfort to me in my solitary retirement, I’m sure.”
“So, you’re not gonna try to plant your lovely new rump in your old endowed chair?”
“How could I teach, looking like this?”
“Like I said before, it’d do wonders for enrollment!”
I chuckled dutifully, then said, “No. Student and teacher, I gave forty years to the academy. It’s enough. If I get to start over . . . .”
I fell silent. There were, after all, a whole lot of barriers between where I was and “starting over.”
Janet sensed my thought. “Then we’d better make sure you get another chance, Ebineezer. And one way we’re gonna boost your odds is that I’m goin’ with you!”
I moved to protest, but she cut me off.
“I’m not lookin’ forward to retirement any more’n you were. Even apart from how I feel about you, this is a great adventure. A once-in-lifetime chance to make a real difference in this world. Somethin’ neither of us has managed in sixty fucking years. Make that mostly non-fucking years, if you follow me. If you make me miss it, I’ll never forgive you!”
“But . . .”
“I’ll fix you up with Wolf!”
“Janet . . . “
“No . . . I’ll fix you up with Quibble, so you’ll really be Mrs. Rabbit!”
“Janet . . . “
“Or a Goddamned tree frog!”
“Janet!”
She finally paused her tirade long enough to say “What?” in a voice overloaded with suspicion.
“Will you come with me? I don’t think I can manage without you.”
She grinned. “Maybe if you ask nice. Use your big words!”
And that was how we found ourselves at Janet’s house three days later, waiting for the aliens to arrive.
* * * * *
“I wonder whether we had the coordinates right.” It was 7 p.m. and we still hadn’t heard from the aliens. Since they had asked for “coordinates,” we had texted back 42.34107° N, 72.66151° W, rather than a street address. But we were just trusting that would mean something to the aliens. We also had to trust Google Maps to be right about things like that. When it comes to AI, I’m not a naturally trusting soul.
“They texted you before. They know how to reach you,” Janet said, with more patience than I probably deserved. It had not been the first time I’d made a similar observation over the course of the past three hours.
“Hi, Honey, I’m home,” Ensign Worm said as he walked into the living room from the kitchen. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he wouldn’t ring the front door bell. But why would he think that made any more sense than just walking in the back door?
He was still wearing his Walter Cronkite suit, but he appeared to have repaired the jacket and acquired different footwear. Flip-flops were definitely an improvement of the red pumps he had sported when I had seen him last, but, like his greeting, it was . . . not yet ready for prime time.
I was on my feet without having even thought about it. “Ensign Worm! Uh . . . welcome back? Please come in and meet my colleague, Professor Janet Seldon.”
Worm stood his ground for a moment, looking at me carefully. “I think . . . we satisfied your design specifications, yes?”
I found myself blushing. “I can’t complain,” I demurely demurred.
“Since we talk, I study this ‘aesthetics.’ It is matter of proportion, yes?”
“That’s part of it,” I said cautiously.
“I think maybe your backside was not right proportion? Maybe large too much?”
“Wait . . . WHAT! Are you saying I have a fat ass?!!!”
Worm’s accent altered completely. “Well shucks, Ma'am. If that's all that's been botherin' you, ferget it. You're just pleasingly plump.”
“Plump!!!”
Reverting to his flatter intonation, he asked, “Do you find your breasts are maybe too large as well?”
Janet took this moment to interject. “Said no man ever.”
I tried manfully – womanfully? – to speak through gritted teeth. “We are not going to debate the aesthetic merits of my new proportions!”
Worm continued to look at me curiously, before saying, “I should like to discuss this aesthetics further. Perhaps another day. To determine if mistakes we made. ‘A wise man once said, “Great hazards accompany innovation.”’”
“Which wise man?” Janet asked.
“Pete Malloy,” Worm responded.
I was finding myself getting extremely annoyed, and platitudinous quotes from Adam-12 weren’t improving my temper. “In reference to my body, which is just fine thank you very much, what do you mean by that?”
Worm blinked twice, slowly, more like a barn owl than a human. “As a matter of fact I don't even know what it means. It's just one of those things that gets in my head and keeps rolling around in there like a marble.”
Janet was watching me closely and raised an eyebrow.
Time to sit on my annoyance. Worm’s shifting speech patterns made conversation difficult. When he was quoting something wholesale from old movies or TV shows – as he had clearly just done again – his speech was relatively fluid and colloquial (if sometimes anachronistic), but often was just a bit off the point he wanted to make. When he struck out on his own and attempted to formulate original sentences, his grammar was poor, his syntax quirky and his affect was flatter. But, he was generally easier to follow from a logical perspective.
“Ensign Worm,” I said, “It may be easier for us to communicate if you don’t try to use quotes from the transmissions you monitored. Your sentence structure and word choice aren’t perfect, but we can usually follow them and we’ll ask for clarification if we can’t. Is that acceptable?”
“My language is now much excellent, yes?” he asked. It should have sounded hopeful, and it did, a bit, but for his overall flat affect.
“You’ve made progress,” I said cautiously. “But I wouldn’t enter into any delicate negotiations on your own just yet. Remember, I’m a language expert. When it comes to your language and patterns of speech and thought, that means that I know what I don’t know. Others may make assumptions that aren’t accurate.”
He appeared to consider that answer for a moment before replying. “So, are you ready to start our negotiation?”
“Why don’t you sit down and we can discuss it,” I said.
“Humans think more easily when they are not upright?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. Janet tried. “We tend to find sittin’ is more comfortable for talkin’. When we’re physically active, we prefer standin’ up.” Her eyes developed a dangerous twinkle and she added, “Or, sometimes, lyin’ down.”
Mercifully, Worm was not diverted by Janet’s innuendo. He moved to a chair and sat, hindquarters barely touching the edge, back erect. He looked about as comfortable as a felon on a witness stand. “Professor Janet Seldon, are you a seller of weapons-grade uranium?” he asked politely.
“What! No!!!” she said, horrified.
“If I may?” I said as I sat on the couch across from the ensign. “Professor Seldon is a colleague and friend. I’ve asked for her help in working to facilitate your negotiations.”
“Ah,” Worm said. “We need you, and you need her. Just like Kirk and Spock.”
“More like Abbott and Costello,” Janet growled.
“Who?” asked Worm.
“First base,” she replied.
“STOP!” I was having a hard enough time following Worm! “To bring us back to the subject at hand,” I said, throwing a glare at an unrepentant Janet, “let’s talk about your purchase, and what sorts of things you are prepared to offer in exchange, and how best to go about reaching the people who will need to make the decisions.”
“The transmissions show people selling things for ‘bucks.’ We can give you many of these ‘bucks.’”
“You plannin’ on robbin’ a few banks?” Janet asked.
“No!” Worm responded. “The transmissions show this is not right with your rules, yes? We are not rule breakers!”
“How are you planning to get the ‘bucks,’ I asked, curious.
“Oh! We can make them most easy. Manufacture . . . no, not correct. ‘Print,’ yes?”
“That's . . . also not legal,” I said. “Against our rules. And might cause our economy to collapse.” I waved my hands airily, implying all manner of dire consequences without the necessity of detail. I’m a linguist, not an economist.
Worm, mercifully, was solely focused on the part I was most confident about. “Not legal?”
“Nope. Counterfeiting. Not legal anywhere.”
“We . . . oh. We can’t do that. We are rule followers.” Worm uttered this last sentence with conviction.
Fascinating. “We were thinking more about technology, honestly,” I said.
“How would you think dishonestly about technology?” Worm inquired, sounding genuinely curious.
“Sorry,” I said. “Figure of speech. Let me rephrase. We think you need to offer know-how that you have and we don’t. You’ve managed interstellar travel. You know things we haven’t figured out yet.”
“Wouldn’t that violate the Prime Directive?”
“What?” I asked, flummoxed.
“What, what?” Worm repeated.
Janet saved me. “It’s another reference to Star Trek, Jessica.”
“I almost never saw it,” I said, exasperated. “Help me out here!”
“In the show, Star Fleet wasn’t allowed to interfere in the natural development of less advanced societies. Including by introducing advanced tech.”
“Ah. Not a problem,” I said. “We don’t actually have a ‘prime directive.’”
“No?” Worm sounded disappointed. “But we do.”
My eyes grew wide and my face flushed. Holy shit! These bastards had tech that could improve the lives of everyone on earth, but it would be withheld for our own good? I’m guessing that damned TV show never explored how “less advanced societies” felt about Starfleet’s “prime directive!”
I forced myself to swallow my indignation. What he was saying wasn’t really all that different from the conversations that Janet and I had on the subject of life-saving or life-extending tech that could bring on massive overpopulation and a complete collapse of the biosphere. The difference was, aliens were making the decisions!
I decided I had better put that issue aside for a moment and work on what I hoped would be an easier part of the problem. “I am going to need something to show people who make decisions about uranium stockpiles, to convince them that they really are dealing with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Some advanced tech would be very helpful for that purpose.”
Worm said, “Not a problem, if we give something you cannot copy . . . . But we did, yes? You cannot change age, shape, organs for species replenishment.”
“Won’t work,” I responded. “I can’t prove I ever looked different than I do now.”
“You did your work a bit too well,” Janet added.
“But I do have an idea,” I said. “Do you have ways of storing energy for later use?”
“Of course,” Worm responded.
I had been drinking a can of Diet Coke when Worm had walked in. I pointed at it and said, “how much energy could you store in something that size? How long would it take to charge it? How much would it weigh? And, could it be made with materials that are readily available on this planet?”
“Dammit, Jim, I’m not an engineer,” he said flatly.
“It’s ‘Jessica,’ thanks to you folks – And I’d like to discuss that sometime, by the way – but I don’t need the exact engineering specifications right now. Just a general idea.”
“We did not change the name you call yourself,” Worm said.
“No, but . . . well. Later. Anyhow. You see the vehicles we use for transportation – our ‘cars’? Some of them use stored electric power for locomotion. With a compact energy storage device like I described, how far could one of our cars go?”
“I do not know exact.”
“Roughly?”
“To the large ‘city,’ at least,” Worm said, after thinking a moment.
“Boston?” I asked.
“I do not think that name. No. Where Archie lives.”
“Archie?”
“Yes, yes. And Eedit and Glow-ria and Meathead.”
“Oh!” said Janet. “You mean Archie Bunker. All in the Family. They lived in New York.”
It was just what I was hoping for! Better confirm it. “You could drive from here to New York City with a power storage device the size of that can?”
“Yes. Possibly further. ‘Actual mileage may vary.’”
“Okay!” I said. “So, here’s my idea. Go back to the ship. See if you can manufacture a device that fits the size of that can, and can be accessed by one of our plugs.” I held up the charger plug for my iPhone. “Make it tamper-proof, so we can’t take it apart and figure out how it works.”
“How will this device help our mission?”
“We’ll take it to experts and have them test it. If it can store a lot of power and is portable, that’s going to get high-level attention fast.” Without saying it, my mind added, “I hope!”
“Why don’t we land our ship in your Capital? Get attention, yes?”
I shuddered. Visions of missiles, bombs, tanks and drones . . . . “Yes, but not the kind of attention you want! You’ve been wise to keep your presence largely secret. And . . . non-threatening. Your mission will be more likely to succeed if you keep it that way.”
Worm considered that. “All right. The Swarm Leader would not want trouble with natives. So . . . your people test this device. Then what?”
“That’ll get us a hearing with people who make decisions. Then we figure out what you’re willing to trade that they might want bad enough to give up some of the most dangerous and expensive material on the planet. I warn you now, it’s going to take something big.”
“Our rules – our ‘Prime Directive’ – must be followed,” Worm cautioned.
Janet had been deep in thought while I worked on getting a powerful battery out of the alien. Now she said, “You know, the Enterprise crew often found ways around the ‘Prime Directive . . . .”
“Rules are . . . rules,” Worm replied, sounding puzzled.
“Of course they are,” I said soothingly, following Janet’s lead. “But . . . the scope of a rule, as applied to a particular circumstance . . . that needs careful thought, doesn’t it? Or the rule might be misapplied.”
“I do not understand this thought,” Worm said, now sounding uncomfortable.
“I think I know someone who might be able to help you understand it,” I said.
Janet sat bolt upright. “You wouldn’t!”
“I don’t see why not.” Turning to Worm, I asked, “Ensign, does your society have lawyers?”
“Like Perry Mason? No. We do not understand ‘lawyers.’ Rules are obeyed.”
“I knew I liked you people,” Janet said.
Talking over her, I said, “You’re in for a real treat.”
Worm looked at me, then he looked at Janet. “I see conflict, yes? How do we forward go?”
Janet looked at me, shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
“Can you tell me exactly what your ‘prime directive’ prohibits?” I asked.
“Not . . . I do not have right words in your language.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go back to the ship. While you’re making the battery, get me as complete and accurate a statement of your prime directive as you can in English. Then we’ll sit down with the lawyer.”
“This will work? You are not yanking on my foot?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Maybe someone else better does?” Worm asked.
It was a shrewd negotiating move. I answered as honestly as I could. “Maybe. I don’t know. But it’ll take time, whoever you talk to. Unless you just steal what you want.”
“‘I am not a crook,’” he said with finality. My confidence level would have gone up if he’d quoted someone else.
Worm stood up. “I have concerns about plan. But will speak my elders and we decide.” Without waiting for any response, he walked purposefully to the kitchen and out the back door.
When we were certain Worm was gone, Janet said, “You sure about this, girl?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. They want weapons-grade uranium, and they're acting like the guys who bought Manhattan with some colored beads! If we can make a battery as powerful and compact as that, it’ll change the world. Maybe save it. To them, it’s just a formula!”
“You’re not worried about unintended consequences?”
“Of course I am. But inaction has unintended consequences too.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word. “But . . . inflicting lawyers on an innocent, unsuspecting society? Is that fair?”
“Janet,” I said, “We don’t have a ‘Prime Directive.’ Besides, they’re the ‘advanced society’ here, right? They can bloody well look after themselves!”
“If you say so,” she said, sounding dubious.
* * * * *
We called Justin Abel’s office first thing the next morning and got an appointment for 11:30. I excused myself and started to get ready.
This was important. As Janet had said, we had a chance to really make a difference for all humanity. Finding a way around the alien’s ‘prime directive’ would be the key.
But at the same time . . . I found myself remembering Able’s muscular build, his mobile face and penetrating eyes. Eyes that had been drawn to me, time and time again. It hadn’t felt remotely creepy. To the contrary . . . .
With these conflicting thoughts in my mind, I started to get dressed. Immediately, I gravitated to a black bra and panty set that looked and felt sexy as a war-time pin-up. My breasts felt even more full, and my nipples even more sensitive, as I settled them into their satin-lined cups. I rolled black silk stockings up each leg, marveling at the sensations that rippled from my smooth and sensitive skin. No, I did not want my old life back!
My eyes lingered on the low-cut red dress that had pride of place in my closet. That would certainly get Abel’s attention! The thought of it gave me a shiver. But it was too early in the day, and I wasn’t going out clubbing, for God’s sake! The professor in me shouted, “Focus, Girl!!!”
I settled on a poly-rayon knit skirt that showed off my trim waist and rounded posterior and was just modest enough, while still showing plenty of leg. I added a white camisole and a cream-colored silk top with a deep “v” neckline. “V” for victory!
I took care with both my hair and my makeup, working to emphasize my lustrous eyes and full lips. Three inch black pumps and the barest hint of scent completed the ensemble. Jessica was ready for battle.
I left my room to find Janet in the living room, still in her sweats. She looked me over carefully and an enormous grin split her face. “The bear spray’s still with your hikin’ gear. You may want to bring it along. Just in case you run into somethin’ dangerous. You know. Wild animals . . . stray males . . . .’”
“You’re not coming?” It came out almost as a wail.
“Three’s a crowd, girl,” she smirked.
“Janet!!! This is important! I’m not going out on a date!”
She raised an eyebrow in sardonic salute. “I’m liking the uniform, workin’ girl.”
I couldn’t help it. I stamped my foot.
She giggled.
“Janet, we can’t afford to screw this up. Please!!!”
She stopped smiling and leaned forward. “No, we can’t. You can’t. Jessica, you gotta learn how to walk in those heels and still talk sense. How to be comfortable with your sexuality without becomin’ a sex object. All teasin’ aside, you look fine. Abel’s a cutie, no doubt about it. It’s okay that you notice that. But, you’ve got a job to do. Don’t forget it.”
“But you won’t back me up?”
“You don’t need trainin’ wheels, girl. Get the job done . . . and have fun doin’ it!!” She got up and gave me a hug, which I suddenly found myself returning fiercely.
Because I didn’t have a driver’s license that would convince anyone, Janet dropped me off at Abel’s office and drove off to run some errands. With some trepidation, I walked to the front door, taking the small steps that my tight skirt and heels demanded.
Abel’s assistant – I didn’t know whether she was a receptionist, a secretary, or something else altogether – showed me into the conference room where we had met with Officer Wolf. “Mr. Abel will be with you in just a moment,” she assured me. “Would you like some tea or coffee while you wait?”
Uncharacteristically, I asked for some tea. It might settle my nerves. Just after Ms. Somers dropped it off and left, Abel rapped on the door and walked in.
I rose gracefully – I thought I was graceful, anyway – and walked around the oak conference table, offering him my hand. “Good morning, Mr. Abel. Thanks for seeing me on short notice again.” Although my voice was both higher and lighter than it had ever been, it was low and resonant for a woman – a rich contralto.
Able hadn’t moved from the doorway, and his gaze fixed on my face as if it had been nailed there so as not to stray towards forbidden pastures. “Ms. . . . Lapine, is it?” He took my hand carefully, like he might break it, and shook it gently. But firmly.
“Well, prolly not,” I said. “But I haven’t come up with anything else yet. You can call me Jessica for now.”
“Please have a seat,” he said. He turned to close the door, thought better of it, and left it ajar. He sat across the table from me with his back to the open door. I could hear Ms. Somers buzzing around in the waiting area.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’d better call you by your last name. Any last name!”
I cocked my head and said, “Certainly, I can come up with something. Is the use of first names considered unprofessional?”
“If I was just talking to some sixty-year old guy who teaches at Gryphon, it probably wouldn’t matter. But when I’m in a conference room with someone who looks like she is seventeen and is . . . ah . . . easy on the eye, then . . . yes.”
“I see.” Interesting. Remembering something Janet had said the other day, I said, “Why don’t you call me James. Ms. James. If that helps you.”
“Seriously? Jesse James?”
I felt my face flush again. “Scarlett” might have been the best last name after all. But I was annoyed rather than embarrassed. “Anyone who tries to call me ‘Jesse’ is unlikely to make that mistake twice, Mr. Abel!”
Despite my youthful and innocent appearance, there was enough starch in my answer to get through to him. He looked ever so slightly abashed. “I apologize, Ms. James. That was rude of me.”
Better, I thought.
“What brings you here today,” he asked, trying to get past the awkwardness.
“We’ve encountered a bit of a problem, and we thought that you might be able to help. It might or might not come up, but if it does, it’ll happen soon, and I wanted to lay the groundwork now.”
“Charmingly mysterious.” It was very clear that I had his undivided attention, but I wasn’t confident he was focused on what I was saying. Still, he said, “Go on.”
“Well. The aliens who altered my body have come back. Professor Seldon and I met with one of them yesterday evening. They want to arrange a purchase of some rare materials. We – I – agreed to take their proposal to the appropriate authorities. But there’s a catch.”
“Isn’t there always?”
I squelched my annoyance at his pose of amused detachment. “The aliens have advanced technologies that could be very valuable – very beneficial – here on earth. I don’t want us to trade valuable materials for the equivalent of tchotchkes. But they apparently have a rule about providing advanced technologies to backwards civilizations.”
“The Prime Directive,” he said. “Naturally.”
Was I the only person who hadn’t watched that damned TV show? “Why do you say ‘naturally?’”
He paused. Thought a moment. Then said, “I withdraw the comment, and apologize. So, they have this rule. What are you looking for?”
“A way around it. Apparently they are a highly law-abiding society. As the one we spoke to yesterday put it, they are ‘rule followers.’ They . . . ah . . . don’t actually have lawyers.”
That seemed to impress him. “How original! They’ve never encountered a lawyer before? Oh my God! What an opportunity!” It was like he’d just heard a siren or something.
“Well, about that,” I said, repressively, “Professor Seldon wasn’t sure it was completely fair of me to ask that they meet with you to discuss the scope of their rule, but I figured they could look after themselves. And . . . this is important. For our whole species.”
He leaned back in his chair and studied me for a long moment. “You really do believe this,” he said. Seeing something dangerous in my expression, he said, “Please, I’m not being insulting. Or, rather, I’m not trying to be insulting, which isn’t really the same thing. People tell me stories all the time, including clients. I constantly have to evaluate people’s truthfulness. But – and I apologize for being blunt – the fact that you believe it doesn’t make it true.”
“You mean, I could be the victim of a scam.”
“Yes. Another possibility is that you’re delusional.” Seeing my expression darken again, he hastily added, “Just playing devil’s advocate, you understand.”
“Maybe you’d be a better person if you played advocate for someone else!”
“Possibly,” he acknowledged. “But I wouldn’t be a better lawyer, and you aren’t paying $300 an hour for a ‘person.’”
I reached into my purse and flipped him my drivers’ license. “That’s me,” I said. “Or was, up until a month ago. I have sixty years of memories to go with the photo. If I was scammed, the scammers are the functional equivalent of an advanced species. And there’s no way that I could ‘delude’ myself into a working knowledge of Old English, Norman French, Greek, Classical Latin, Church Latin and Hochdeutch, with a smattering of other languages besides.”
“Seriously?” His skepticism was as thick as tar on a cold morning.
Skepticism was one thing, but mulishness was something else. I lifted my chin. “Try me,” I challenged.
He regarded me for a moment, his dark eyes hooded. “What’s the first line of the Canterbury Tales?”
“Bad question,” I replied. “‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The drooghte of March hath perced to the roote . . . .’ I’m an expert in linguistics, Mr. Abel, not literature. But Chaucer is significant to both disciplines, and I co-authored a monograph on it ten years or so ago with Geoff Harrison down in Annapolis.”
“Nice,” he said, approvingly. “Though obviously not conclusive. Why was it a bad question?”
“Oh, because lots of people would know that quote. Sophomore English majors. Even money-grubbing lawyers, likely enough.”
He licked an index finger, drew a “one” in the air, and said, “Point to you, Ms. James. A very palpable hit!!”
“You want to keep trying? I can run up the score fast, but don’t you be charging me for it!”
“Curses, you're on to me!” he responded with a smile. Becoming serious, he added, “If Chaucer’s too easy, I don’t have the background to ask you hard questions. But even if lots of people know that quote, I doubt lots of seventeen-year-old girls do.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
Finally I said, “Scams and delusions don’t fit the evidence. It’s a binary solution set. Either I’m lying – and I studied my ass off to be convincing – or my story’s true.” I looked guileless. At least, I hoped I looked guileless. With a face like mine, “guileless” should be the damned default setting!
After a long moment he sighed. “I’m sorry, Ms. James. Every instinct I have tells me that I should believe you. But the male of the species who could disbelieve you when you sit there looking like that has yet to be born. An objective fact of which you are no doubt fully aware. So in this particular circumstance, I can’t trust my instinct.”
“Thank you . . . I think.” His response was extremely vexing. But also . . . kind of nice?
Focus, girl!!!
“Ms. James. Jessica. You don’t need me to believe your story – not for anything you’ve asked me to do. If you want me to review language to see if I can find a way around it I’m happy to, and the skill that I apply to that task will not be affected by whether I remain skeptical.”
“I wonder if you’re right about that,” I said slowly.
“I assure you . . . “ he began.
I held up my hand to silence him. “Bear with me, please . . . .” I thought a moment before continuing. “I asked them to give me the clearest statement of their rule in English. But it’ll be a translation. Translations are problematic even when you are going from one human language to another, and our mental processes are all generally the same. We don’t even have the first idea how these creatures think, much less how they communicate. Even the concepts behind their speech will be different from English – or any terrestrial language – in ways we can’t begin to understand yet.”
I was speaking carefully, feeling my way. I was just now starting to understand how difficult this task could be, and my focus was entirely inward.
But this seemed to impress Abel in a way that my earlier assertions, and my most guileless expression, hadn’t. “Those are . . . good points,” he said. “This won’t be like interpreting a statute passed by Congress. We’re going to need to ask them follow-up questions, to clarify the full spectrum of meanings they are attempting to convey with the English words they select. Will that be possible?”
“I don’t know. I suggested the meeting to the guy they sent to talk with me, but he had to take it back to his superiors. I’m hoping to hear back directly. But they are aliens. I don’t know what they’ll decide, or even how long they’ll take to make a decision.”
Abel looked at me. For the first time, I think, he really saw me. And the person he was seeing was not, thank God, just a seventeen-year-old ingenue. “I hope they call,” he said softly. “I’m beginning to think this could be a truly unique assignment.”
Projecting calm through a swirl of new and conflicting emotions, I met his dark eyes squarely. “Indeed,” I said.
To be continued. Indeed.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 8: What Are Little Girls Made Of?
It looked just like a can of Coke. Not, interestingly, a can of Diet Coke. Christmas red, classic white Spencerian script, vintage Seventies wave logo. But, as I discovered when Ensign Worm handed it to me, it weighed more than half again as much as a 12-ounce can.
Which is why I dropped it.
“Shit!!!” I jumped back, half expecting the device to explode on contact with the ceramic tile in Janet’s kitchen. It just landed with kind of a thud instead, then rolled towards me.
“Shit,” Janet agreed, but her undeleted expletive sounded more annoyed than surprised. She surveyed the new crack in her floor tile with a frown.
“No, no,” Worm corrected. “It is ‘battery,’ as requested. Not human waste.”
We looked at him.
“It’s the ree-all thing,” he said in his quote-y voice.
I took a knee to pick up the can – Janet had impressed upon me that simply bending down to do such things was inadvisable for someone with my ass-ets – and held it once more. It wasn’t heavy, exactly. Just heavier than I had expected. I noticed a U.S. type-A power socket and something that looked like a lightning port on the bottom of the can.
I rose and looked at Worm. “This holds as much energy as it takes to drive a car from here to New York City?”
“Yes. Unless Wrongway Feldman drives.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Never mind,” Janet urged.
Janet was right. I returned to business. “All the components are available here on this planet?”
“Yes. All common. But, device shielded, yes?”
“Right. What things should we avoid doing with it?” I asked.
“Do not open or scan battery,” Worm replied in his flatest voice.
“What will happen if we do?”
“Boom,” he said.
“Okaaay then. Anything else we need to know?” I asked him.
“This device will self-destruct in five ‘weeks.’ Good luck, Jim.”
“Jessica, dammit. Or even James! Never ‘Jim!’” I snapped.
Worm looked puzzled. “Siri calls you Jim.”
“And you don’t even want to know what I call Siri!”
“Hmmm . . . Is there something else I can help you with?” asked a familiar synthetic voice coming from my back pocket.
“I doubt it. You never have,” I snarled.
“I don’t know what that means. Would you like me to search the web for . . . .”
I cut her off. It. Whatever. “No. Cancel!”
“Siri is . . . not excellent?” Worm inquired.
I was about to give my unfiltered and very pithy view on that question but stopped myself just in time. “That depends. Its voice-recognition software needs work. Other elements of the overall program are better.”
Janet was looking at me like I had grown a second head. Or, I don’t know, turned into a busty, beautiful girl or something.
I shook my head at her fractionally, then asked Worm, “How were you planning to use Siri?”
“We accessed the language database to assist with translation of our “Rule Governing Contact with Backward Societies.”
I hope that Worm could not accurately interpret my facial expression. Backward society, indeed! “Do you have your translation finished?”
Worm reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and handed me some sort of print-out. The writing was in English, and it was brief: “The People will not do or say anything that will alter the natural development of any less advanced sentient or potentially sentient species in star systems other than our own.”
“That’s it?” I inquired, somewhat taken aback. “We have longer rules about potato chips!”
“‘Brevity is the soul of lingerie,’” Janet murmured.
Worm looked at us. “We try. Our thinking . . . our communication . . . different is very. We understand this rule . . . But to speak? Not certain.”
I nodded. That, I expected. “I want to take this to our lawyer. Like Perry Mason, but different . . . person. He – we – will want to ask you questions about the text. Maybe others from your crew too?”
“That . . . yes. We think that important is. Rule must be followed. Elder Mission Leader should here be. But he will Siri need. To speak.”
While confident that would cause its own set of problems, I agreed that it would probably be best. “Can you wait a moment, please?”
I made a call.
“Law offices, this is Jennifer Somers.”
“Hi Ms. Somers, this is Jessica James. Is Mr. Abel available?”
“He’s just about to leave for court. Is it urgent?”
“If I could have just a minute of his time, I’d appreciate it.”
“Let me check,” she said.
A few seconds later, Able’s rich baritone joined the conversation. “Ms. James. What’s up?” His voice sounded warm.
“The visitor we spoke about is back and I have the text. Is there a time you can meet with me and, ah, their representatives, at Professor Seldon’s house?”
“No shit?”
“Nope. Battery.”
“What?” he asked, confused.
“I’ll explain later. Can you come?”
“Will tonight work? After six?”
I looked at Worm. “Would you be able to meet with the lawyer here at, say, ninety of our minutes before sundown?”
Worm said yes and I confirmed with Abel. Showtime!!!
* * * * *
Janet was glum. “He’s definitely the guy. And he’ll take my call.”
I looked at her skeptically. “Then why do you look like you’ve been sucking lemons and eating cane toads?”
“Ever hear the sayin’, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes God?’”
I didn’t recall its provenance, but I’d certainly heard the expression. Unsurprising, really, since it described a depressingly significant percentage of distinguished professors. “One of those, huh?”
“Mighta been written about him.” Janet continued to slice cheese for our sandwiches. “But . . . yeah. He’s the guy. He got the damned Nobel in Chemistry for his work on battery tech. And he’s on the President’s Science Advisory Board.”
“Wait . . . wasn’t he the one who got booted off the advisory board – he was the chair – because . . . .” Oh.
“Of an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with an intern?” Janet said. “Yep. That’s the asshole. But that was a couple administrations back, and apparently the powers that frickin’ always are decided he’s too damned valuable to toss him overboard completely for such a trivial infraction. So he’s back.”
I remembered the incident, which had taken place in the quaint old days when inappropriate relationships with subordinates had been scandals worthy of front page headlines and carried consequences. Seven, eight years ago.
My expression mustn’t have been any more cheerful than Janet’s. “But he’ll take your call?”
“For Patrice’s sake, if nothin’ else. We were close for a lot of years.”
I sighed. “Well, if you’re willing to grit your teeth and make the call, I’ll gird my loins, or whatever the hell I’ve got down there now, and do the meeting.”
“Not alone you won’t, Missy. Not unless you’re girding with kevlar and a mousetrap!”
If I’d still had a penis, it would have retracted into my body at the very thought of Janet’s notion of protection. Yikes!
“Janet, I know what I look like now. And sound like, for that matter. But do try to remember that I’m older than you are.”
She stopped making sandwiches and gave me a long look. “When it comes to language, Jessica, you’re everythin’ you ever were. More, maybe. But when it comes to ‘girl stuff’ . . . trust me. You have less experience than your apparent age, not more.”
My instinct to fight Janet’s maternalism was strong. I’m an adult, and I’ve been dispatching assholes all by myself for decades. I didn’t think of Professor Grimm as a threat to me in any physical sense.
But I was almost certainly wrong about that. Much as it lacerated my ego to admit it, I really didn’t know how to handle myself as a young woman. Janet was right. “Concedo,” I said ruefully.
I only heard Janet’s side of the call:
“Gavin, it’s Janet Seldon. . . .”
“I know, right? Too long. . . . “
“I’m good. Real good. Enjoying the summer . . . . “
“You are? Really? That sounds fantastic. . . . “
“Yeah, I’m jealous. Well . . . I would be jealous, but I’m workin’ on somethin’ even more interestin’. . . . “
“Well, that’s why I’m callin’, actually. It’s sorta in your wheelhouse, what with your Nobel an’ all. . . . “
“Nope. I’m serious. Dead serious. . . .”
“I want to show you, not tell you. Have you got time this week? . . . “
“Yeah, I mean this week! . . . . “
“Not over the phone, Gav. . . .”
“I promise. It’ll be worth your while. . . . “
“Yes, Gavin, I do have an idea how busy you are. . . . “
“No, I’m not saying more on the phone. . . . “
“A half hour only. What I’ll be askin’ for at the meeting will take more time, but you’ll be able to say ‘No’ if you don’t want the opportunity. . . . “
“No idea. . . . “
“Because I’m a literature professor, not a chemical engineer, that’s why! . . . .”
“Wednesday, 3:45 in your office? Of course. That’ll be fine.”
“No problem. You won’t regret it.”
“I know you do, but that’s only ‘cuz you don’t know what I know!”
“Fine. Wednesday. See ya!”
She ended the call, then double checked to make sure that her phone was really, truly off. “Prick!”
“But you got the meeting.”
“Yeah, I got it. ‘Scuze me while I go take a shower. ‘Do you have any idea how busy I am?’” she said, the mimicry brutal. “God! I don’t know what Patrice saw in that man.”
“A genius, maybe?”
She made a sour face. “Want a genius in your life? Hire one. For appropriate tasks – of limited duration.”
“Which is pretty much what we’re doing,” I pointed out.
She grinned. “Except for the ‘hire’ part. He should do this for free.”
* * * * *
“You're serious? This is all there is?” Justin was sitting in the living room, having taken about ten seconds to read the entirety of the aliens’ “Prime Directive.” “If it weren’t for your experience, Ms. James, this would certainly convince me that the whole thing’s a scam.”
“There is the prototype battery,” Janet pointed out.
“”Which looks like something you might find on Etsy,” he countered.
“That’s the entirety of the text they gave us,” I said. I was sitting on the couch across from him, my knees together, ankles demurely crossed, back straight, hands in my lap. I was working on wearing a skirt, showing off my nice new legs, and looking like a lady.
Justin was sitting far enough away that he could take in the whole picture without staring rudely at any particular, ah, element. He was keeping cool, but his eyes . . . they might be just a bit warmer than that.
“But . . . .?” he said, making it a question.
“But they implied that the meaning was more . . . maybe not complicated. Just . . . deeper? Fuller? It’s hard to convey. Worm did, very specifically, say that their thought processes and method of communication amongst themselves are very different from our language. “ I found my hands rising to add emphasis to my words.
“So let’s talk about loopholes,” Janet said. “Maybe we’re not a ‘less advanced species.’”
“They’ve got interstellar travel,” I argued. “You’d prolly have a better chance of convincing them that we aren’t even potentially sentient.”
“A proposition for which there is no shortage of support,” Justin allowed.
“Nonsense,” Janet said. “Maybe they’ve got spaceflight – and girl juice, don’t forget, though you skipped that one, Jessica! But they don’t have The Simpsons. Or Beowulf, for that matter, if you feel compelled to go upmarket. And don’t get me started on The Scarlet Letter!”
I said, “They may have literature, Janet. We just don’t know.”
Janet looked stubborn. “Well, they don’t have humor. Worm told you so. Havin’ met him, I believe it!”
“I had no idea Beowulf was funny,” Justin offered.
“And don’t get me started on The Scarlet Letter,” I added.
“Troglodytes! Morlocks! Hester Prynne is hysterical and Grendel is a comedic genius!” As usual, Janet refused to be deterred.
As gently as possible, I said, “Perhaps we digress?”
“Actually,” Justin said, “While I’m not sure I agree with Professor Seldon’s specific examples, her overall point is worth exploring. The aliens are apparently advanced in physical and biological sciences. Granted. But, is that the measure of the concept they’re attempting to capture? Maybe yes, maybe no. We shouldn’t assume.”
Janet stuck her tongue out at me.
“Any other phrases jump out at you?” I asked.
Justin said, “We should at least confirm that this group of aliens would be considered part of ‘the People,’ and that – again, as encompassed within the concept they are attempting to articulate – we aren’t in ‘their’ star system by virtue of the fact that this group is here. But I don’t hold out much hope that those terms will help us. The big enchilada is “will.”
“Will?” Janet repeated, puzzled.
I just nodded; I’d seen that one too. “‘Depends what the meaning of the word “is” is,’ right?”
“Something like that,” he agreed.
Janet grinned. “Good to know that the subtleties of the legal mind are still equal to the emergency!”
“Did you miss me?” Worm asked, opening the front door.
This time, I’d been expecting him to come in the back. We all stood as Worm walked into the house, followed by the figure I recognized from my nightmarish visit to their ship.
Worm had kept the Cronkite suit and flip flops; the other alien was more consistent, wearing an original series Star Trek uniform: black polyester pants, a gold tunic, and impractical boots. Why would anyone wear boots on a starship?
Of course, if I remembered right, the women had worn both the boots and a whole lot less fabric.
Worm looked at us curiously. “I thought humans sat for talk?”
“But we stand for introductions,” I explained. “Justin Abel, our attorney.”
The figure in the Star Trek uniform was holding something that looked like an iPhone but probably wasn’t. It emitted chittering noises when I stopped speaking. The figure chittered, and the “iPhone” spoke with Siri’s voice. “Is your attorney non-functional?”
“What?” asked Janet.
More chittering, quickly followed by, “What do I need to do to enable it?” The alien moved towards Justin.
He rather understandably moved back, fast. “I’m in perfect working order, thank you!”
“Wait!!!” I said. “We will have misunderstandings. This is one of them. In our language, sometimes, the same sounds have different meanings; Siri’s voice recognition software does a poor job differentiating them. ‘Just enable’ and ‘Justin Abel’ sound the same, but the second is a name, like ‘Janet Seldon’ or ‘Jessica James.’”
“Or Zsa Zsa Gabor,” Worm added helpfully.
“Yeah,” Janet agreed. “That chick.”
The leader stopped moving.
I waited while his device caught up with the translations. The features he was projecting, while human in appearance, did a poor job of expressing emotion. For all of his quirks, it was obvious that Worm had studied us much more carefully than his superior.
Finally, the leader chittered and his translator said, “I understand. The People do not have these ‘names.’”
“‘Ensign Worm’ isn’t a name?” I inquired.
“No. ‘Ensign’ for junior team member. ‘Worm’ for immature member of the People.”
“Ensign Worm” I said, indicating him, “referred to you, I think, as ‘Elder Mission Leader?’”
Chitter, chitter. “That is good enough.”
“In the alternative,” Janet said, “I s’pose we could just whistle.”
“Why don’t we sit down,” I interjected hurriedly, hoping to head off a discussion that might involve puckering up and blowing.
The humans sat; the aliens more-or-less perched on the ends of their seats.
“As I explained to Ensign Worm, we would like to explore the meaning of your rule related to other civilizations, to make sure we all have the same understanding of it. Our attorney can help.”
The iPhone chittered, then the leader chittered, then the phone translated into English. “It is difficult. The Story of the People is long. We do not think you have a similar Story. The Story is the foundation for our thoughts and our communications. We don’t use ‘words,’ we use references to parts of the Story that convey complex meaning.”
“Fascinating!” Janet and I said, simultaneously, equally awestruck at what we’d just heard, though for different reasons.
“Geeks!” Justin said, shaking his head at us with a trace of affection. Turning back to the aliens, he said, “Let me first ask, does the idea of ‘The People’ in your statement of the rule encompass, ah, ‘independent contractors’ who are far from home?”
Worm looked at the leader and chittered. The leader chittered back. Then they started going at it fast and furious. The iPhone was not translating any of it.
After over three minutes of intense conversation between the two aliens – intense, at least, judging by the number of back-and-forths; their respective affects remained flat – they turned back to us.
“Yes,” Worm replied.
“He says,’look at the camera,’” Janet quoted.
The “iPhone” didn’t catch Janet’s aside, but Worm did. “Ca- mer-a?”
“A reference to one of our stories,” Janet said pointedly. “In this context, the reference suggests that there was more to your discussion just now than your summary in English.”
The iPhone did translate this. The leader replied, in a speech that was translated, “The People are The People. The People of the Story. That any of our species could be cut off from The People is . . . ..”
Siri stopped translating and the recorded voice said, “I’m sorry, Captain, I didn’t quite get that.”
Worm finished the leader’s thought. “Inconceivable.”
“I don’t think that that means what you think it means,” Janet cautioned.
After translation, the leader’s response was, “The scope of the rule on this point is clear to me. We are part of The People.”
Justin said, “Let’s move on, then. What qualifies as one of ‘your’ star systems?”
This time there was no internal discussion between the aliens. Worm said, “This concept clear. Like you, The People on one planet evolved. Circles one star. The home of the People. No ‘Prime Directive’ for home system.”
“Where’s that?” Janet asked, curious.
Worm and the leader had a brief chitter together, after which Worm said, “Not telling. But far. Your years, our ship traveled over three hundred.”
“Holy Guacamole!” Janet exclaimed.
Justin was about to move on, but I thought this could be significant. “Will others of The People follow you?”
More internal discussion, followed by chittering from the leader that got translated. “Unlikely before our return home. Your star system is . . . remote.”
“Like Green Acres,’” Worm added helpfully. “Or ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ ‘Remote’ doesn’t capture . . . .”
“East Buttfuck,” Janet growled.
“The Back-Ass of Nowhere,” I agreed. “But useful to know.” I shot her a look that said, “Later.”
Justin said, “Let me ask about your idea of ‘less advanced’ species. What criteria do you use to determine if a society is more or less advanced?”
This time the internal and untranslated dialogue easily lasted five minutes.
Finally Worm turned his attention back to us. “The reference points in the Story complex are.
In your terms, maybe science. Engineering. Culture.”
“How do you measure culture?” Justin asked.
“Everything against the Story is measured,” Worm responded. “I reviewed many, many transmissions. Bonanza. Scooby-Doo. H.R. Puffnstuff.”
“Hey, there’s some good shit there!” Janet said, sounding defensive. Unwilling to throw pop culture under the bus, she added, “And, don’t forget Sanford and Son. Classic!”
I did not share Janet’s inhibitions. “The transmissions you intercepted are not representative of the cultural achievements even of our society, much less all the societies of our species. TV is just . . . mass communication. Entertainment.”
The leader responded, through the translator. “You prove the point, Jessica James. You don’t even have ‘a’ culture. Any more than you have ‘a’ language.”
I raised my chin in challenge. “Diversity has value too.”
The leader said, “In our culture unity is an advance. Nonconformity is . . . .”
The translation paused. Siri’s voice shifted into its more accustomed channel. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t get that.”
The leader tried again, with the same result.
Worm attempted to assist. “I think right word is ‘defect.’ Or ‘disease.’ ‘Plague.’”
“Jessica?” Justin drew my attention, and dampened my ire, by the simple expedient of speaking softly and using my first name. “Let this one go. For today.”
I took a deep breath, then released it. “All right. But I don’t believe either species has sufficient information at this point to evaluate which ‘culture’ is more advanced.”
Janet agreed. “‘Whadya want to bet the Story’d be rejected by ev’ry studio in Hollywood!”
Justin jumped in to forestall the translation of Janet’s comment, which – for all we knew – might have triggered an interstellar war we would certainly lose. “Let’s explore the concept of whether an action ‘will alter’ our ‘natural development.’ Does the idea encompass a mere possibility? A probability? Or only a certainty?”
Chittering cross-talk was followed by Worm saying, “we do not understand.”
Justin attempted to explain with an example. “Giving Professor . . . James . . . your injection didn’t violate your rule, right?”
The aliens confirmed that it hadn’t.
“Well, you understand that it almost certainly increased her lifespan and created the possibility that she will . . . ah . . . reproduce?” He had the grace to blush.
I hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of being pregnant sometime. Although I had to acknowledge that I’d given more than a few passing thoughts to the activities that might cause such a thing to occur. . . .
“One person matters does not,” Worm said flatly.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Justin countered. “Just those two changes might have secondary and tertiary effects which could change the course of human development.”
“Unlikely,” Worm replied.
“Any number of individuals have changed the course of human development. Humans aren’t all the same. We have different skills. Different training. And Professor James is more highly educated than over 98 percent of our species. Extending her life is more likely to affect human development than you think.”
This led to considerable back-and-forth chittering.
“Should we Professor James terminate?” Worm asked, like he was talking about flipping a light switch.
“Now just a goddamned minute!” Janet said, starting to get up.
Justin forestalled her. “That solution would be very much against the law,” our learned counsel reminded the rule-conscious visitors.
“It also wouldn’t solve the problem, since my early death is as likely to ‘alter’ the development of the human species as the artificial extension of it would.” In my personal opinion, that likelihood would be precisely zero either way. I had an ego at least equal to any tenured professor, but even I wouldn’t claim to have done more than make an important contribution to my own field of linguistics. Truth be known, few of the people who had actually changed the course of human history had a Ph.D or a tenured ivory sinecure.
I kept my doubts to myself. This was no time for modesty – not even well-deserved and wholly appropriate modesty!
The aliens went back to chittering. Finally, the leader spoke. “I understand your point. An action that might alter natural development would not violate our rule. Unless it actually did alter development.”
“But after the fact, you can’t prove something actually changed the path of development unless you can demonstrate conclusively what would have happened otherwise,” I pointed out.
That lead to more chittering. Eventually the leader agreed with my assessment.
Justin moved in for the kill. “Then suppose you gave us the formula for some technology we don’t have, but might discover on our own tomorrow even without your help. That wouldn’t violate your rule, would it? There’d be no way to prove that the invention actually altered our ‘natural’ development path.”
They chittered. They chittered some more. They kept going back and forth.
I took a break and powdered my nose. Returned and sat, once again taking care to assume a ladylike pose. This ladylike stuff took a lot of thought and attention!
Janet did the same. Then Justin (although he was able to dispense with the ladylike pose!).
Finally the leader’s translator kicked in. “You are correct, Attorney Justin Abel. But it would depend on the technology. . . . How close your species was to discovery.”
“Jessica?” Justin asked. “What are you thinking? What’s the ask?”
I was flooded with a feeling of relief. Even triumph. We might pull this off! A smile spread wide across my face. “I’d like to buy the world a Coke!”
* * * * *
Worm and the Leader had returned to their ship after agreeing to research the likelihood that providing us with the formula for their battery technology would actually alter the ‘natural’ path of human development. Courtesy of their tap into the internet, they could probably get at least some idea of the current state of our science and research on this subject.
We had followed them outside and watched as they both appeared to float away into the twilight, rising up in a way that seemed very non-terrestrial. There was no flapping of wings, no blast off. One second they were standing there, the next they were just rising into the heavens like mylar balloons.
Justin watched until he couldn’t see them any longer.
“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believe?” I asked softly.
He looked at me, standing so close, and chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, you got me. Hard to maintain my professional skepticism when you show me something like that.”
On an impulse, I reached out and gave his arm a brief squeeze. “I’m glad. I understand why you wanted to suspend judgment. But . . . it was hard to trust you, when you couldn't bring yourself to trust us.”
His eyes met and held mine for a moment. A few heartbeats. His eyes had things to say that his disciplined mind would not allow him to speak.
“Pizza?” asked Janet.
We both practically jumped.
“Great idea,” Justin said, recovering first. “There are a few things we should talk about.”
We went back inside and Janet put in a call to – wouldn’t it just figure? – Highbrow Pizza. Then we sat at her table to debrief.
“Damn,” said Jessica. “Can you imagine what a coup it would be, to be the first human to see a copy of the Story?”
Justin said, “I was interested in how their language is all based on references to it. It’s like lawyers referring to principles by case name. I mean, all you have to do is say “Marbury v. Madison,” and with seven syllables you evoke the entire doctrine of judges reviewing whether the actions of the political branches conform to the Constitution. But their whole language works like that!”
I shook my head. “There’s a component I think you’re both missing. Their language all is based on references to this ‘Story,’ but . . . what comprises the Story itself? It can’t be words or symbolic language – they don’t have anything like that. So how would you teach it? You know, to the young, the ‘unformed.’ The ‘Worms?’”
“You’re sayin’ the whole thing’s circular?” Janet asked, trying to puzzle it out.
“Noooo,” I said, dragging the word out. I was still figuring it out too. “But I think the Story must be some sort of collective consciousness. More like the memory of the People than the story of the People.”
“That’s . . . .” Justin began, only to fall silent. The implications of collective consciousness were far-reaching.
“Yeah,” Janet said. “We are most definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
I added, “It might also help explain why they had a hard time accepting the notion that individuals can make a difference to the development of a society.”
We sat silently for a moment, then Janet shook her head as if to dismiss speculations. “You shushed me over that thing about our bein’ a backwater, Jessica. I assume you were thinkin’ it’s damned useful that we won’t see any more termites for at least 300 years?”
“Yup,” I replied. “That can be good and bad, I suppose, but it’ll sure give us some time to get our shit together.”
“And maybe next time we meet up, they won’t be callin’ us ‘backwards!’” she agreed, sounding just as aggrieved as I felt.
“What’s the plan?” Justin asked, practically.
“We’re going to bring the prototype battery to Gavin Grimm at MIT for testing,” I responded. “If it’s as good as the aliens say, I’m hoping we can get him to open his rolodex and get us a meeting with people who will be able to talk to people who can decide whether we can make a deal.”
He looked skeptical. “What do we have that they would want?”
“Oh! Hadn’t we mentioned? They want to trade for, ah, U-235.” Janet looked as innocent as a cat bathing in a bowl of cream.
“Huh?”
“Weapons-grade uranium,” I clarified. “They say it’s an aphrodisiac.”
“Some like it hot,” Janet explained.
Justin was shifting his gaze from one of us to the other. “Seriously? Why would anyone give that . . . material . . . to aliens?”
“Lots of reasons, Justin,” I said, using his first name for the first time. “But even if it was a terrible idea, which it actually isn’t, somebody’s going to do a deal. If it’s not us, their ‘ask’ could be something we don’t like. As in, at all.”
Justin gave that a moment’s thought, and suddenly looked a bit green. “Holy shit.”
“It’ll be alright,” I said reassuringly. “We give them some of their joy juice, they go away for a couple of centuries, and maybe when we meet again we’ll have better things to trade.”
“Uh huh.”
“But,” I said, “we’re going to need you to draft some agreements . . . .”
* * * * *
“I don’t think you should say anything about uranium. Or space aliens. Or gender-bending wonder drugs.” Janet was driving us to our Grimm appointment in Boston, and – very uncharacteristically – she was fretting.
After thinking some more, she added, “Really, you probably shouldn’t say anything at all. Just back me up.”
“How? By looking nubile and innocent?” And, truth be known, I was looking pretty damned nubile. A sleeveless, form-fitting navy-blue dress that came to four fingers above my knees emphasized every one of my new curves, and my golden hair cascaded down my back in a river of loose curls.
My “innocent,” on the other hand, still needed work.
Janet said, “Pert as a school girl and filled with girlish glee? No, that’s not what I had in mind. Not with that toad.”
“What’s your plan?” I asked.
She explained it.
“Are you serious! In your backpack?“
“I don’t have the customary briefcase, Jessica. I’m a professor, not a lawyer!”
I wasn’t sure about her plan, but all I knew about Grimm, apart from my vague memory of an old scandal, was based on the research I’d done when Janet mentioned his name. Janet knew him personally.
We entered his office about forty-five minutes later, right on time. He appeared to be focused on responding to an email, and he held up a hand to ask us to wait while he finished.
Then he saw me.
The email went unfinished. “Come in, come in!” His whole manner changed from annoyance to solicitousness in a flash. “Janet, so good to see you again.”
“How can ya say that, when you aren’t even lookin’ at me?” Janet’s tone was borderline affectionate. But . . . it wasn’t a particularly open or friendly border.
He flushed, whether from embarrassment or anger.
“It’s okay, Gav,” Janet soothed. “Just a little joke. I know my colleague has a habit of turnin’ heads. Gavin, Jessica James. Jessica, Professor Grimm.”
“Pleased to meet you – but is it really Jesse James?”
“No, it’s really Jessica James,” I said firmly. “I imagine you don’t find jokes about the Brothers Grimm humorous?”
He grimaced and looked at Janet. “Your colleague?” His intonation made it a question.
“Ms. James,” Jessica said tolerantly, “is older than she looks. Now . . . I know you said you were short on time?”
He sat up straighter. “Yes, very. What’s so secret that you needed face time?”
Getting right to the point, Janet said, “A radical new battery technology. Revolutionary. Change the world kinda stuff.”
He didn’t look impressed. Actually, he looked both bored and annoyed. “I hear that at least five times a day, Janet. At least. And this isn’t your field, so someone’s using you to get to me.”
“No-one put me up to this,” she said. “Hell, Gav, Patrice died ten years ago. Can’t be more’n a handful of people who even know you know me, if you know what I mean.”
He took a moment to untangle the epistemological twists of Janet’s statement before responding. “Fine. But that still begs the question. Why you? What do you know about batteries?”
“The important things,” Janet said stoutly. “How much energy they hold. How long it takes to charge ‘em. How many times they can be charged. Whether they’re stable. Size and weight.”
“But absolutely nothing, I expect, about how to optimize any of those things?” Grimm’s summary was just short of snide.
Janet was unconcerned. “Correct. I don’t know any of that, and neither do almost any people who will actually be usin’ batteries to do useful things. Like, just for instance, powerin’ electric vehicles. Not to mention various handheld . . . ah . . . devices.”
“What’s your point, Janet?” he asked impatiently.
“I want you to test a prototype battery. Test the hell out of it. I can’t tell you where it came from, and you’ll need to agree to keep your findin’s secret for now, and not to take any action to determine how it works.”
“Uh huh. So, I’m supposed to take up my valuable time testing someone else’s pet project without even figuring out how it works? Why would I do that? I did mention that time is something I have in very short supply?”
“Once or twice, yeah. But if these design specs check out . . . well. I think you of all people will understand what it'll mean.” She pushed a piece of paper across the desk to him.
He glanced at it briefly. Did a double take and reviewed it again. In detail. “Preposterous!”
“Maybe it is,” Janet said. “I’m no engineer. But if it’s right . . . .?”
“Yeah, and if radioactive spiders make people strong I can be Iron Man.”
“Spiderman,” she corrected.
“Whatever! Janet, this is my field. I know more about the state of the science than almost anyone on earth. There’s nothing that comes close to the specifications you’re showing me. Not remotely.”
“Okay,” Janet said. “Isn’t that all the more reason to test it?”
“Janet!!! I clearly haven’t impressed this on you humanities-addled brain. I’m BUSY!”
Janet was about to bark back, but I decided it was time for my part of the drama. “Professor Grimm . . . a moment, please?”
“What?” he snapped. But when he looked at me, his expression softened. “I apologize. Your ‘colleague’ has always had a talent for getting under my skin.”
“Don’t take it personally; she does that to everyone. We really aren’t wasting your time, but I know it seems that way. I think we can make it worth your while.”
He got an unpleasant gleam in his eye. “Just how do you propose to do that, Miss James?”
I decided to ignore the innuendo. “A wager, Professor. Fifty thousand dollars, to assist in your valuable research. If the battery doesn’t meet or exceed those specifications, that’s payment for your time.”
It was half of my savings. Thirty years of thrift to accumulate that amount, and I was pushing it all onto the green felt. But I had good reasons to believe in the aliens’ technology.
Two big ones, in fact.
“And if it does meet the specifications?” Grimm asked.
“We keep the money. I think, in that case, you’d agree that we haven’t actually wasted your time?”
He looked at the spec sheet again. “Yeah, no kidding. But how do I know you even have fifty thousand dollars. Are you going to write me a personal check?”
I unzipped Janet’s backpack, which I had carried for her, and started pulling out neatly wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills. I started stacking them on the desk. “Ten to a wrapper, so we’ll need fifty.”
“Damn, girl,” Janet drawled. “You do that math in your head?”
Grimm, on the other hand, looked positively panicked. “Professor Seldon! What on earth is going on here! I won’t be party to some sort of . . . drug deal! Where the hell did all of this cash come from? Albuquerque?”
“Relax, Gavin. It came from my account, and I’ve fortunately brought along a copy of the receipt from my bank in Northampton. It’s legitimate as a royal heir.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?”
Grimm still looked acutely uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame him, really. The only time Americans see that kind of cash in one place is in the movies. Movies involving illegal activity.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked.
Janet said, “We’ll put it into an escrow account. You can pick the bank and we’ll set it up. You and I’ll both need to agree before the funds are released.”
He almost balked at the agreements. The simple agreement to test wasn’t a problem, and the confidentiality agreement was standard. The agreement on the wager required a bit of a haggle, since we had built in protections in case he tried to cheat by falsifying a failed test. Mostly, it appeared to piss him off.
Where he really had trouble was the notice included in the agreement not to attempt to open the device or run any kind of scan on it. “What do you mean, the thing will explode!”
“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” Janet said. “Does ‘explode’ mean differn’t things to chemists than it does to literature professors?”
“First off, I’m not a ‘chemist!’ And second, ‘explode’ can mean a whole range of things, from mildly uncomfortable to catastrophic. You’re saying this thing is dangerous? Explosive?”
“Not if you don’t open it or scan it,” Janet said.
“How the hell do you know?”
“I don’t,” she snapped. “But that’s what the manufacturers said, and they don’t have a reason to lie. Do you want me to take this somewhere else? Your cross-town rivals, maybe?”
“There’s no-one else who comes close to my expertise and you know it! No-one at Harvard, certainly!”
“I’ll settle for someone with fewer brains an’ more balls! Christ, Gavin, this tech could change the world. You KNOW what those specs mean. If you’re even willing to contemplate letting me take this somewhere else, you’re half the scientist I thought you were, and a tenth the man my friend married!”
He stood, his face nearly purple with rage. He leaned over, planted his balled fists on the top of his desk, and shouted, “Get out! Out of my office! This instant!!!”
“Fine!!!” Janet said, leaping up. “C’mon, Jessica! Let’s see what the geniuses at Harvard have to say!”
I remained seated. “No, Janet,” I said quietly. “And no, Professor Grimm. This is too important. Janet, can you give me five minutes with the Professor?”
Both of them were looking at me. Equally surprised, though for different reasons.
Janet opened her mouth to protest.
I stood and faced her. “Please. It’ll be alright. Give me a minute.”
She gave me a look that was very hard to interpret, though I fully expected to get a translation – at full volume! – when we were alone together. Then she shrugged, as if to say, “Your funeral, girl,” gave a last glare at Professor Grimm, and walked out. She closed the door behind her with something close to a slam.
“My dismissal applied to both of you,” Grimm said icily.
“I know that, Professor. But . . . you and Janet clearly have a long history. And maybe not an entirely pleasant one. I wanted an opportunity to ask you to reconsider without all of those emotions interfering.”
“Young woman, are you suggesting that I am incapable of acting rationally?” He sounded affronted.
“To the contrary. The situation is sufficiently strange to arouse entirely reasonable suspicions. We’re asking you to take a risk. I know that.”
“So you agree that the rational course is for me to have nothing to do with this . . . scheme?”
“No, sir, I don’t. There are reasons to be cautious, and I trust – and hope – that you’ll take whatever precautions you can, while still performing a comprehensive set of tests to evaluate the performance of the battery. But . . . the potential gain here far outweighs any risk.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Potential gain for whom, Miss James? What’s your role in all this?”
“Gain for all of humanity, sir. I want this technology available to everyone, everywhere. No licensing fees. No monopoly profits.”
“Fine words!” He said, sounding skeptical. He came around the desk and stood less than two feet away, very much in my personal space. “Why are you here, Miss James? Did Professor Seldon leave you alone with me so that you could claim something improper occurred?”
“No, sir. I expect Janet’s ready to rip me a new one. I’m here because you’re the right person for this job. I know it. You know it. And I don’t want some old fight between you and Janet to get in the way.”
He took a step closer, and was literally looming over me. “Just how much older than seventeen are you, Miss James?” The question was soft. Dangerously soft.
There he was, in my face. A direct physical threat. At sixty years old, James Wainwright, Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, would have reacted with a curled lip, scorn, and derision. At seventeen, young James would have puffed out his chest, closed the distance, and met the challenge with force.
But a seventeen-year-old Jessica couldn’t use either approach. According to Janet, the signature glower of my later years was now “cute;” God knows how a sneer would look. And as for puffing out my chest . . . yeah, no. That’d just be presenting my wares like a bargain buffet at Denny’s.
Besides, I had no surge of testosterone to fuel an aggressive response. I needed something else. Something that would allow me to stand, to meet the threat without flinching. Without cowering. All I had was belief in myself, belief in what I was doing. “Firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”
It would have to do.
I raised my chin. “Old enough to know you’re just testing me. Developing an effective battery technology has been the singular focus of your entire life’s work. It’s why you’re here, rather than raking in millions at some company. And it’s why I’m here.”
He was close enough that I could smell his breath. He had nice enough breath, fortunately. His eyes bore down on mine, and his glower would have done James Wainwright proud.
Damn, I missed my ability to glower!
“Just testing you, am I?”
I refused to lower my eyes. My heart was pounding. I was hoping that none of my nervousness, none of my fear, was showing. Maybe I should have girded with kevlar. But I answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Sure about that are you, Missy?”
“It’s ‘Jessica,’ and yes, I am.” I had never felt so vulnerable before. I was wearing three-inch pumps, and still I felt tiny. But I kept my voice steady.
He smiled. “Then I guess you pass. I’ll sign it.” He walked back to the other side of the desk, leaned over, and signed his name to the remaining agreement.
My knees felt strangely weak. Janet was going to kill me. And she’d be right. But the risk had paid off.
I gathered up the agreements and put them, along with the money, into the plain black backpack that Janet had brought with us. I thanked Professor Grimm and turned to go.
“Miss James?” he said, as I reached the door.
“Professor?”
“You are planning to give me the battery, aren’t you?”
What with all the drama, I’d practically forgotten the most important thing! My face flushed my now signature scarlet. “Of course, Professor. That was thoughtless of me.”
I unzipped the front pocket of the backpack, pulled out the prototype, and gave him a Coke and a smile.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” he asked, incredulous.
As the weight of the can registered, his expression turned first to surprise, then – as he dropped it – to dismay.
“Shit!” he said.
To be continued. Conceivably.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 9: A Matter of Honor
Janet gave me a long, long look. A head-to-toe inspection, with particular attention to the state of my hair, makeup and attire, as I walked across the lobby to where she was silently fuming.
“Will wonders never cease,” she drawled. “It appears that virgins may wander unmolested. Right here — in the heart of the Stata Symbol!”
I stopped, the echo of the click-click of my heels still sounding in my ears. I found myself standing in front of her like a misbehaving schoolgirl, ankles together, knees together, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, Janet.”
“What. Were. You. THINKING!!!!” She didn’t get up.
“That we were so close . . . . and I don’t like to lose.”
“Some things you only get to lose once, you idiot!” She took a deep breath and launched into a detailed, colorful, and embarrassing recitation of my many flaws, past, present and yet to come, a positively Dickensian declamation.
I didn’t say anything.
Finally, even Janet ran out of expletives, colorful metaphors and obscure references to both nineteenth century literature and fifty years of popular culture. Given her background and encyclopedic memory, that took a considerable amount of time. She gave me another long, sour, searching look before saying, “Alright. You aren’t fightin’ back. What gives?”
“Because you were right. . . . And because I was scared.”
“What?!” She sounded incredulous.
I began to understand why my overuse of that query had occasionally irritated people. My statement didn’t seem strange to me, under the circumstances. So I asked, “Why what?”
She got to her feet. “Well first, I don’t think you’ve ever admitted that I was right about anything, even though I’m generally right about everything. And second . . . ‘cuz I can’t imagine you have enough sense to be scared of me.”
I shook my head. “Not you. Him. I was scared. I’ve never been scared . . . or, not like that.”
“What did he do?” Her question positively pulsed with menace.
I hadn’t run those risks just to have it all blow up. “He signed the agreements. And he didn’t touch me. But if he had tried something, I realized — really realized — that I couldn’t possibly stop him. That I was . . . ” I forced myself to grind out the last word . . . “powerless.” I was surprised to find myself shaking.
Janet’s eyes filled with sudden understanding, and her voice was soft. “So . . . you maybe learned something?”
“Oh yes!” I lifted my chin. “I learned just how much I hate to lose!”
* * * *
It had been a stressful day and a long one; we had to deal with setting up the escrow account (the bank manager’s expression, when we pulled $50,000 in cash out of a glorified book bag, was priceless), and westbound rush-hour traffic on the Mass Pike was insane. Relations between us were still tense, so we just went straight to our respective beds when we got back to Janet’s house.
I woke to the smell of eggs, bacon and coffee. Some of the best, most wonderful smells in the world. But I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed.
Eventually an exasperated or impatient Janet knocked on the door. “Aren’t you up yet?”
“Go ’way,” I grouched.
Instead, she poked her head in. “C’mon, Jessica,” she coaxed. “I’ll even apologize . . . for bein’ right. The most deadly of the seven deadly sins.”
I gave her a baleful stare. “Janet, I feel like shit. I can’t possibly think about food. I’ll be up in a while. Maybe. If I don’t die first.”
She came and sat on the side of my bed. Very mom-like I suppose, though my memories of my own mom were pretty hazy. “What’s wrong?”
“Told you,” I grumbled. “I feel like shit.”
“You look like shit, too,” she agreed without any noticeable sympathy. “So it’s not all in your head, if that makes you feel any better. But do you have, like, ya know . . . symptoms?”
“Head hurts, body feels weird. And I’ve got . . . I dunno . . . muscle spasms? . . . in my nether region.”
“Oh,” she said.
“No!!!” I said, as the import of her knowing look hit me.
“There’s always a bright side,” she said, soothingly.
“Don’t tell me . . . .”
“Yep. You’re not pregnant.”
It was the beginning of three fun-filled days of mystical exploration. All the joy, the mystery of being reborn as a woman! I felt so close to Janet. To every woman ever born. I was, indeed, going where no man had gone before, and it was awesome.
Alright, that’s bullshit. It was awful, and I hated literally every bloody minute of it (and every literally bloody minute of it, too!), and I cursed the damned termites that had done this to me, and cursed God above for having done this to women more generally, and cursed Janet for no longer being subject to it.
Janet said I was barely spotting.
I cursed her again.
She warned that it could be worse in later iterations; this could turn out to be nothing more than the ladypart equivalent of a throat-clearing, prefatory to a full-blown Wagnerian Opera of guts, blood and drama.
I dug into my memory and found curses in old English and Hochdeutch. They knew how to curse!
But I did get through it, somehow, and on the fourth day I even made breakfast to apologize to Janet for having been a complete and total bitch for the entire period. Pun very much intended.
“Every damned month, huh?”I asked her, without much hope.
“It’s less predictable when you’re young,” she replied philosophically. “Might be as little as three weeks or so between periods at your age.”
Go not to literature professors for counsel, for they are wicked and think they’re funny.
We had a good breakfast despite Janet’s fun at my expense. At the end of the meal, though, we had to address a sensitive subject. On the off chance that something happened to her — something like, for instance, getting arrested when James Wainwright failed to arrive for the Fall semester — Janet wanted me to be able to get access to cash. Going to multiple branches of her bank over a period of a week, she had withdrawn virtually all of the money — not just all the money I had transferred to her, but her own money too. We hadn’t discussed it in advance.
“I’m not sure what’s crazier,” I said. “The fact that you’ve got all this cash, or the fact that you’re carrying it around in a backpack!”
“Just five thousand in the backpack. I put the rest in a safe deposit box at Florence Bank. In fact, why don’t we take a little drive after we clean up.”
I thought we were going to the bank, but instead Janet drove around in circles for a while, then stopped at a McDonalds.
Janet’s very definitely not a food snob (or a snob of any sort), but this was unlike her. “You got a hankering for a happy meal? We just ate?”
“I love the smell of nuggets in the morning,” she said conspiratorially. “It reminds me of acne.” She opened the glove compartment and pulled out what appeared to be a rock. The underside had a piece that slid out to expose a key hidden in a recess. “This is a key to the safe deposit box.”
She closed the compartment then carried the rock to the base of the McDonalds sign, where she put it with a few other rocks.
“Janet,” I said as she got back in the car, “Wouldn’t that be safer at your house? I understand being a bit paranoid, but this is crazy!”
“There’s another copy at the house, in the drawer where I throw all the unidentified keys I’ve collected over the years. This is a ‘just in case’ kind of thing.”
“You used to be such a sensible woman,” I complained.
“When?” she replied, indignant.
“Yeah, good point,” I conceded.
“Better! You’re a guest in my house, don’t go insultin’ me like that!”
* * * *
Three more days passed. We were going more than a bit crazy. We hadn’t heard from the termites, we hadn’t heard from Professor Grimm, and we had nothing better to do than worry. To distract ourselves, Janet was showing me how to use a moisturizing face mask. As a result, I wasn’t fit to be seen when the doorbell rang.
Janet’s house isn’t large, so I had no trouble hearing what was going on from my bedroom.
“Officer Wolf. How nice to see you again,” Janet said dryly.
“Professor Seldon, I’m here to execute a search warrant on these premises for information relating to the disappearance of James Wainwright.”
“Ain’t you the proper Lord High Executioner? And I’m guessing you’ve got a little list, too.”
“A warrant, Ma’am. For today, you’re not on it. Interfere, and you will be.”
“But Professor Wainwright hasn’t disappeared.”
“I’m not buying it. The judge didn’t buy it. End of the day, I doubt a jury’s gonna buy it either. But if your smooth-talking lawyer wants to give it a shot, he’s welcome to try.”
“You’ve got no evidence of any crime!”
“You miss the part where I said the judge didn’t buy it? I’ve got a badge and a warrant, and all you’ve got’s an argument for another day. Stand aside, Ma’am.”
I grabbed my phone and made an urgent call.
“This is Justin Abel . . . .”
“Justin, it’s Jessica . . . .”
“I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave your name, number, and a brief message I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Dammit! Voicemail! “It’s Jessica James. Officer Wolf is at Professor Sheldon’s house executing a search warrant. Please call!”
“If it isn’t Miss Rabbit,” said the Wolf at my door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” I hollered, started. Bad enough he was in the house, but he caught me wearing nothing but a nightie, a sweet nothing of a dressing gown, and a face full of mud. I was ripped!
“My duty,” he replied with a slow smile.
“The sacrifices you make! Will you kindly step out of my room so I can get dressed?” My tone was icy.
“And hide or destroy evidence? Mais non, petite lapine.”
French? French was nothing. Anyone could learn French! “Numpty scunner! Bawheed! Faugh!!!”
“What?”
“Leck mich am Arsch!”
He gave up. “I’m not here to trade . . . whatever you’ve been spitting at me. I’ve got a warrant and I’m going to execute it, and if you interfere I’ll arrest you and take you downtown just as you are!”
It was, under the circumstances, an effective threat. “Rummaging around in a lady’s dressing room?” I asked scornfully, mentally thanking Janet for showing me the movie. “What are you looking for, Mr. Wolf? Well, never mind. You just do your executing. Don’t mind me if I do a little recording!”
I held up the phone. But . . . I had never actually used the camera. I wasn’t sure what to do. So I just held it in what I hoped was a suitably threatening manner.
Which is when the doorbell rang a second time. “Good evening, Ma’am,” I heard from the doorway. “Wayne Knight, Treasury Department. I’m here to ask you a few questions about some recent banking activities.”
“Oh, fine! Search away!” I said, pushing past the officious Officer Wolf and going into the hallway, my useless phone still in my hand.
“Why don’t you come in,” Janet was saying to the new arrival.
“Maybe because he doesn’t have a warrant?” I suggested.
“Jessica, hon, you look a bit underdressed for entertainin’ important visitors,” Janet said.
“A bit late for that,” I growled.
From the door, Mr. Knight said, “Really, I’m just here to ask some questions.” He saw me and his eyes bugged. He found somewhere else to look with almost frantic alacrity.
“Step into my parlor,” Janet said.
Knight stepped inside hesitantly, trying desperately to keep from glancing my way. It was almost comical.
I decided not to make his job any easier. “Can I get you something, Mr. Knight? Tea? Coffee? A moisturizing mask?”
“N-n-no, thank you, ah, Miss,” he managed, moving towards the couch like he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Janet watched the show with a sardonic smile. “Isn’t it your duty as a knight t’sample as much peril as you can?”
“Excuse me?” Knight asked weakly, as his buckling knees dropped him onto the couch.
But Knight had barely settled on the couch when someone hammered on the door.
“Oh, fine, I’ll get it,” I said before Janet could get up. “Modesty’s surely a lost cause tonight anyway!”
I pulled the front door open with a jerk, surprising an imposing man with a completely bald head just as he was about to hit the door again. “If you say anything about knockers, you’re a dead man!” I growled.
“What?” he replied, sounding fatuous. But he recovered quickly and added, “Earl Grant, Department of Homeland Security.”
“Mr. Grant,” I said, “it seems like it’s law enforcement appreciation day at the Seldon household today, and we’re booked up. Would you like to take a number?”
Our voices carried to the living room, and the arrival of this new visitor was apparently enough to rouse Mr. Knight from his peril-induced timidity. “What are you doing here, Grant?” he asked, getting up and moving towards the door.
“Making sure you don’t screw up a delicate situation,” Grant said repressively. He pushed past me with barely an “excuse me, Miss,” then confronted Knight. “We’re taking charge of this matter.”
“Under whose authority?” Sure enough, Knight was puffing out his chest.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security himself,” Grant replied.
“Oh, I’m so impressed! The Treasury Department has only existed for . . . I don’t know . . . a couple centuries longer than that dog’s breakfast of agencies you call a ‘department!’”
“We’re the frontline defense for national security!”
“That and a few bucks’ll buy you a latte — and guess whose department controls the bucks, buttwipe!”
“Aha!!!” cried Officer Wolf, who emerged from my room brandishing a wallet. My wallet, which unfortunately contained the only ID I possessed. The one that identifies me as James Wainwright. “What have we here?”
The federal agents looked at him.
“A wallet?” asked Grant.
“Is this a trick question?” Knight added, sounding a bit whiny.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here,” Wolf blustered. “I’ve got a warrant to search these premises!”
“Grant. Homeland Security.”
“I report to the Secretary of the Treasury — the senior service! — and he reports only to the President!” barked Knight.
Officer Wolf said, “Sweet. But I report to Sergeant Bane of the Northampton Municipal Police. He pisses on presidents and shits bigger’n both of you!”
They were almost chest-to-chest, arguing about precedents and jurisdiction and what-all, though the vocabulary seemed a bit low for such arid and esoteric subjects. My phone, still in my hand, began to buzz. When I saw who it was, I gently touched Janet’s arm and steered her through the front door that Grant hadn’t bothered to close. The sounds of the argument followed us.
“I think I’ll go for a little walk now,” Janet said under her breath.
“Ensign Worm,” I said, answering my phone as we got outside. “How nice of you to call. Would you happen to be nearby?”
“Affirmative, Jessica James,” his flat voice replied.
“Would you mind if we conducted our conversation on your ship?”
After a moment, he replied, “We can that do.”
I got a firm grip on Janet's arm. “Two to beam up!”
Our feet left the ground. Janet grinned fiercely and said, “Exit, stage . . . Fright!”
We were probably 100 yards above the house, vanishing into the evening twilight, when Officer Wolf came through the front door, followed by the two federal agents. From high above, their scurrying made them look like ants when their nest is disturbed.
Or maybe termites.
“Beamin’ worked different on Star Trek,” Janet said, as thoughtfully as is possible while being pulled effortlessly through the air.
“Is that a complaint?”
“No, no. Got no great desire to have my atoms scattered and reassembled or whatever. Besides . . . this is kinda fun. Regular E-Ticket ride.”
We were now pretty high up, and the nylon of my nightie and dressing gown did nothing to keep out the chill. But a rescue was a rescue. I wasn’t going to complain until I turned into a pulchritudinous popsicle.
Janet saw that I was still holding my phone. “Hey, girl, how ’bout a selfie, huh?”
“No photos!” I shivered, and mostly not from the cold. “The only reason I’m not losing it right now is that the termites have no conception of human aesthetics.”
“You still look pretty good . . . from the neck down.”
“Gee thanks!”
With startling suddenness, our view of Northampton vanished as a door soundlessly slid shut beneath our feet. We hovered over it for a moment before being gently lowered to a surface that felt, to my bare feet, like Velcro. A hatch of some sort opened some thirty feet in front of us.
“Shall we?” I said.
“Hell yeah. This is way more fun than Madagascar.” As we walked towards the hatch, Janet added, “‘Course, I am missin’ the lemurs.”
I smiled. Maybe she was just putting on a brave face, and inside she was as nervous as I was. But somehow I doubted it. If Janet had to go somewhere, she would, by God, go boldly!
The other side of the hatch was familiar from my prior trip to the vessel — a replica, or possibly some form of illusion, showing the bridge of the Enterprise from the original Star Trek series. All the bridge stations appeared to be occupied by people in uniforms from the TV show, though Ensign Worm, standing by the center seat, was still in his Cronkite suit and flip-flops.
I acknowledged our hosts. “Elder Mission Leader. Ensign Worm.”
Worm looked at me carefully, his face as usual impassive. “I am your aesthetics understanding not much. Did we make mistake with your face?”
“Ah . . . no. The covering is a skin treatment.” It would also, I hoped, hide my deep blush. “I apologize for our appearance — we weren’t planning on seeing anyone this evening.” Janet, at least, was wearing a bit more than my scanty pink nightie!
“Comms, at least, should be female,” Janet said, looking at the apparent composition of the bridge crew.
“Ah!” said Worm. “We this wondered. It time took to fully understanding this thing. Your species gender split.”
The Elder chittered, and Siri’s voice eventually translated. “Our species does not divide gender. All the People can produce the equivalent of your eggs and sperm. Which, is a matter of season and . . . .”
“I’m sorry Captain, I didn’t quite get that,” Siri’s voice finished.
Worm tried, as usual, to supply a word for the concept that was not translating easily. “‘Preference?’ Maybe, ‘Mood?’”
My interest was piqued. “It’s a periodic cycle?”
The Captain’s chitters translated, “Change is possible in season. Whether it happens? Random. Rare.”
“That’s gotta complicate reproduction,” Janet observed.
“Uranium helps,” Worm said.
“Puts ya in the mood, does it?”
“Oh, yes!” Worm said. His normally flat affect held the faintest note of rapture. He added, “We get no kicks from champagne.”
“You have grapes?” Janet asked.
“What?”
I cut in. “Ensign, I assume you were calling us because you completed your research. Perhaps,” I added, giving Janet a meaningful look, “you could update us on what you’ve determined?”
The guy at the science station responded, though his ‘words’, like the Elder’s, were translated using Siri’s voice. “We have an eighty-seven point three percent confidence level that your species will develop an equivalent energy storage system within a period of time corresponding to five of your terrestrial years, give or take one order of magnitude.”
We looked at them.
They looked at us.
“I was told there would be no math,” Janet said sourly.
Statistics wasn’t exactly my field either. “I think he is saying that it’s pretty likely to happen at some point in the next fifty years.”
“That correct is,” Worm agreed.
“So . . . where does this leave us?” I asked.
“We have idea,” Worm responded. “But . . . We want to Justin Abel consult.”
I rearranged his sentence in my mind. “Oh! I guess . . . I mean, I actually just tried to call him. He wasn’t available, but maybe I can try again?”
The leader interceded. “Please attempt to contact Attorney Justin Abel. We are eager to discuss our thinking with him.”
I called his cell phone but hung up when I got his voicemail again. I tried his office number and got another voicemail. While it was still playing, I got a text. “In a meeting. Can I call in 5?” I sent an affirmative response.
“We should hear back from him in a few minutes,” I told the aliens.
“We can here bring him,” offered Worm.
I blanched. “When I look like THIS!”
“Hush, Jessica, you look fine,” Janet soothed.
“Not from the neck up!”
“Given what you look like from the neck down, Hon, I kinda doubt he’ll be looking anywheres else.”
“I convinced remain we too much tissue to chest and rear added,” Worm said judiciously. “The proportions. . . .”
“STIFLE!” I shouted. Everyone was sufficiently startled to shut up. Knowing the silence was too good to last, I said, as politely as I could, “Elder Mission Leader, would it be possible to have a few minutes of privacy and some warm water? I would be embarrassed to be seen like this.”
Janet added, “Something for her to wear might be nice too.”
When Justin called me back, Janet and I were back in the hatch room. We had gotten the moisturizing mask off of my face and I had changed out of my nightie. The aliens had no difficulty fabricating something for me to wear. Their pattern, unsurprisingly, was the uniform which, Janet informed me, had been worn by a Star Trek character called “Uhuru.”
The boots were every bit as impractical as I had thought. And Roddenberry must have run out of his budget for fabric.
Still, I was delighted not to be conducting delicate negotiations in my delicates. Even if the termites were wholly uninterested.
I answered the call formally. “Good evening, Mr. Able.”
“Ms. James — I just listened to your message. Are you both alright?” He sounded very concerned, which was . . . strangely gratifying.
“We are, but there have been a few developments since I left my message. We have some . . . distant visitors who would like to confer with you. You’d need to . . . ah . . . take a short flight.”
He caught on immediately. “Would I be meeting you there?”
“We’re both with them,” I confirmed.
“Give me three minutes to get to a good location.”
“Roger,” I said. It’s so good to deal with professionals.
A few minutes later, Justin joined us both in the “Bridge” simulation. He looked around, a delighted expression on his mobile face. “You’re better than re-runs!” When he saw me, though, he looked surprised. “Have they recruited you?”
“What? Oh! The ‘uniform.’ No, I just didn’t have anything to wear.”
“Uh . . . got it.”
“Attorney Justin Abel,” Worm said. “We want consult to have. About scope of our rule.”
Justin looked at him, at the Elder, and finally at both of us. “I’m not sure I can help you,” he replied.
“What?!!” I was shocked.
The Elder chittered at him, and Siri translated. “We wish to get your opinion on application of our Rule to battery technology. Your questioning at our last meeting was helpful.”
“Justin,” I said, “this is important!”
He held my gaze long enough to quiet me, then turned his attention back to the Elder. “With respect, Elder, I was asking those questions on behalf of my clients, Professors Seldon and James. I owe them a duty, a loyalty. I can’t advise you on the same matter unless your interests are aligned with theirs. Perfectly aligned. And . . . they may not be.”
“This is no time for lawyer games,” Janet growled.
Justin shook his handsome head. “It’s exactly the time for them, Professor. Ethical rules that only apply when stakes are low aren’t worthy of the name.”
“I understand this much not,” Worm said.
“If I advise you on the application of your rule to a particular fact pattern,” Justin said, “you have to be confident that my advice is given solely with your interests in mind. Your interests, as you understand them. Otherwise my advice is meaningless.”
The Elder chittered. “We are just trying to understand the scope of a rule. It is the same, isn’t it, regardless of who is asking the question?”
“I can only say, Elder, that the contrary hypothesis forms one of the primary reasons for the existence of my profession.”
“Where you stand depends on where you sit,” Janet said, a touch sourly. “Lawyers!”
“Justin,” I said softly. “I understand. But . . . If we fired you, could you advise them?” There was a part of me that hoped he would say “no;” in a short time, I had come to rely heavily on his advice. But this was important — very important.
His eyes had widened at my question. “Is that really what you want? Both of you?” His voice was as soft as my own, and conveyed deep concern.
“Elder,” I asked, “Can Professor Seldon and I have a moment to confer privately?”
They made the hatch room available to us again, with assurances that they would not monitor or record our conversation. So far, they had given me a clear impression of being very honest about such things.
“Damn, girl,” Janet said when we were alone. “We actually find a pink unicorn and you’re gonna let him go?”
“I can’t think of another way to get past this hurdle. I’m open to any ideas you might have.”
“But we don’t even know if the technology works,” she countered.
I shook my head. “I think we do know.”
“Huh?”
“We know why Wolf showed up. We know why Knight showed up, too. But there’s only one reason DHS would have gotten involved.”
Janet thought about that a minute before her face assumed a truly murderous expression. “That WEASEL! That stupid, pompous, contemptible WEASEL!!!”
“Janet . . . “
“Patrice should never, EVER . . . “
“JANET!!!”
She paused. Looked at me. “Don’t you try to make excuses for him, Jessica!”
I took a deep breath. “I was kind of hoping for this, actually.”
“Now I’m convinced. The girl juice pickled your brain.”
I decided not to engage on that point. I didn’t think she was right about that, but by definition I wouldn’t know. “He’s on the President’s Science Advisory Board. Confidentiality agreement or no, if that battery was as good as advertised, he would tell the appropriate federal authorities. He’d almost have to.”
“First Abel. Now Grimm. I’m surrounded by ‘honorable men!’”
“Janet . . . We needed a contact inside the government. Grant’s a start.”
“Yeah. I guess. I’m still gonna strangle that weasel when I see him again. And you can bet your plush tush that I’m gonna see him.”
I decided I wasn’t going to fight that fight either. Besides, I wasn’t positive I didn’t agree with her. “So we’ve got a place to start, but we need to be able to make an offer. And they won’t give us what we’re looking for without assurances from Justin.”
“Yeah, go figure. . . . Their civilization’s survived without lawyers for longer than our species has been sentient, and within days of meetin’ one, he’s indispensable!”
“I know,” I said soothingly.
“They’re totally fucked now, you know that? Their civilization will never recover.”
“I’m confident they’ll manage,” I said. “Really, I’m more worried about you. Your legal troubles look like they're just starting.”
Janet looked thoughtful. “About that . . . . I think I’ve got an idea. You want to ask Justin to join us for a minute?”
“Okay,” I said, sounding dubious.
“Trust me,” she responded.
That didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, but I went out and brought Justin in.
“How ‘bout this,” Janet said without preamble. “We fire you with respect to anything related to trade negotiations with the aliens. But you’ll still represent me on anything related to the ‘disappearance’ of Professor Wainwright or whatever Knight was bitchin’ about?”
Justin thought a minute. “I’ll still need conflict waivers from all parties, but yes . . . I could advise the aliens on the offer and contract issues under those circumstances. Ms. James, do you want the same carve-out?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid Janet’s the suspect. I don’t even exist, officially. So let’s just have you represent Janet on the limited issues.”
“Okay,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of stuff I’ll need to memorialize in writing when we’re back on the ground, but I think we can proceed in the meantime. If you’re both sure you’re okay with it?”
Janet and I both gave him a formal, verbal okay.
He took a deep breath, then broke out in a huge, boyish grin that took years off of him. “Let me go confer with my new clients!” And off he went.
“What have we done?” Janet moaned.
It was probably an hour later before the door opened and we were invited back on the “bridge.” The Elder in the center seat spoke, and Siri’s voice calmly announced, “Trading this technology would not, we think, violate our rule, based on Attorney Able’s analysis.”
Or, I thought irreverently, on the attorney’s able analysis. Justin had come through!
“Your species is used to thinking in shorter time increments than ours, Professor Seldon. Professor James. Fifty years is nothing in the life of the People. Even Worm is older than that.”
Justin said, in a dangerously bland voice, “In three hundred years or so, no-one will be able to demonstrate whether this deal made any difference at all. So it’s entirely consistent with the Prime Directive. Properly understood, of course.”
Personally, I thought that was a strange way to read their ‘prime directive,’ but it was a damned convenient one — for both sides. Quelling the excitement that was rising up inside me and attempting to project calm, I said, “I must confirm one more time that, if we have this formula, we will have both the raw materials and the manufacturing capability needed to replicate it.”
Science guy said, “With our formula, we calculate you could commence large-scale manufacturing within four months.”
I thought about that.
Worm looked at me carefully. “Not Poker, Jim. Chess. And . . . your move.”
I got the point, if not the reference. “I understand, Ensign. Elder. But our next steps, with our own authorities, will be a bit complicated.”
Justin’s smile was predatory. “We’re gonna want a lot of U-235. A lot!”
“What have we done?” Janet moaned. Again.
. . . . To be continued. Honestly.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 10: Power Play
“Is your internet tap active?” I asked Ensign Worm. Justin, Janet and I were still on the alien’s ship, in the area they had made to look like the Bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise.
“Affirmative.” As always, his flat affect served to remind me that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, Worm isn’t human.
“I need to call a man who works in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His name is Earl Grant.”
Worm looked at my phone, then looked at me. “Your communicator works not?”
“It works; I don’t have his phone number. And you don’t want to see what happens if I try to use Siri to help me find it.”
The Spock/Bill Nye wannabe at the Science Station stopped fiddling with dials and faced me, chittering something. Siri eventually translated. “There is no record of the Department employing anyone by that name.”
I looked at Janet, confused. “I’m sure that’s what he said his name was. Did I get it wrong?”
Janet shook her head. “I heard him too. And Knight.”
Justin looked at Janet, then me. “Night?” What’s night got to do with it?”
“Not ‘night,’ ‘knight.’” As soon as I said it, I realized how unhelpful it was.
Janet, of course, was up to the task. “Ya know – as in, ‘you silly English kinniggits!’”
“Oh, right. ‘Knight.’” Justin said. “But, why knights?”
“’Cuz maidens need rescuin’?” Janet replied, puckishly.
“Maidens?” Justin was looking even more bewildered.
I decided to stop the fun before our hosts decided our species wasn’t really sentient after all. “Wayne Knight. Not a title; just a name.”
“Ah,” said Worm, nodding knowingly. “Like Freddie Mercury.”
“Yeah. Nothin’ to do with the planet,” Janet agreed.
Justin shook his head, bemused. “What was going on down there? I thought Officer Wolf was executing a search warrant.”
“Well, that too,” Janet said. “It was kinda busy there for a bit.”
“I guess,” Justin said. “Who’s Knight?”
“Treasury. Wanted to ask about my bank withdrawals.”
“Why would the feds care about your withdrawals?” Justin looked perplexed.
“Well . . . you know Treasury’s notified of cash withdrawals over $10,000?”
“Of course.”
“I took out more’n that,” Janet said.
“How much more?” Justin asked, looking concerned.
“$165,000, more’r less.” Janet was attempting to project an air of nonchalance.
“In cash?” Justin exclaimed. “That’s a bit much for a car; a bit light for a house. Are you planning a trip? Maybe a long trip?”
The Elder in the center seat chittered. Translated, he said, “We are concerned. Has Professor Seldon violated the law?”
“Hell, no!” Janet said.
“The Professor is correct,” Justin said. “You can take your money out of your bank any time – just, a certain amount will raise alarm bells.”
“And, Officer Wolf was only investigating the disappearance of James Wainwright.” I said.
“You disappeared?” Worm asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “But they don’t know that.”
The Elder chittered. “You didn’t tell them?”
“I did tell them. People don’t believe it, Elder. I don’t think even Justin believed – not until he saw you beam up to your ship.”
“In my defense,” Justin began.
His new client’s chittering cut him off. “I thought humans listened to people who were young and aesthetically correct?”
“I knew proportions wrong were,” Worm said.
“I promise you,” Justin interjected, “That isn’t the problem.”
“Why thank you, young man,” I said to Justin with a smile and a flutter of my eyelashes. Then I said to the Elder, “They might listen to me about some things, but they won’t believe that I’m James Wainwright. Your shot was far beyond our capabilities.”
Science guy started chittering again. He went on for a while before Siri translated. “We have monitored incoming and outgoing transmissions from the communications devices carried by the three individuals who were present at the location from which we initiated beam-up procedures for Jessica James and Professor Seldon. Our monitoring allows us also to determine the identifying numbers for their communications devices.”
Well that was certainly interesting! “What are the identifying numbers?”
Through Siri, he responded, “2128756921, 4132578541, and 2023742209.”
“The 413 number is obviously Wolf,” Janet said. “Isn’t 212 New York City?”
“And 202 is D.C.,” I said, agreeing. I asked the aliens, “Do you have the ability to correlate the unique identifying numbers to the names of individuals?”
“If the information available through your ‘internet,’ is, yes,” Worm replied.
“Can you try to determine the names attached to the numbers beginning with ‘212’ and ‘202’?”
Science guy fiddled with dials for a few minutes before replying. “We have no reliable information on the 212 number. The 202 number is associated with a human who is in the database of employees for the Department of Homeland Security, reporting to someone identified as the ‘Undersecretary for Science and Technology.’”
“That must be our man,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“It is listed in the database as ‘Grant, Dukkov.’”
“Well . . . close enough, I guess?” I said.
“No wonder he was so abrasive,” Janet said. “Horrible parents, givin’ him a name like that!”
That seemed a bit culturally insensitive to me. “‘Slavic’ isn’t the same as ‘cruel,’ Janet.”
“It is, if he’s goin’ around usin’ his middle name,” Janet replied.
Justin’s eyes crossed. “Oh! Yeah, that is evil. Dreadful parents!”
“We do not this understand,” Worm interjected.
“It’s unimportant,” I assured him. “Just another example of human ‘humor.’ Some of which is pretty low, honestly.”
“Humor elevation has?” he inquired. Worm is a curious creature in more ways than one.
“Difficult to explain,” I said. “But for now, I think we may have what we need to get started.” I looked at Janet. “Any thoughts, before I call him?”
“Ideas? Oh, yeah!” Janet got an evil grin on her face. “Call him ‘Dukkov!’”
She was right.
I punched in the number after asking Science Guy to repeat it. After two rings, a wary male voice answered. “Hello?”
“Is this Dukkov Grant?” I asked, in my sweetest voice.
That resulted in a moment’s hesitation. But eventually he responded, “Who is this?”
“Jessica James. Professor Janet Seldon is with me; I understand you wished to speak with her?”
“I want to speak with both of you. But . . . why does your caller ID say “James Wainwright?”
“It’s a long story. Might be relevant to your inquiry. But . . . It’s not something that we want to discuss on an unsecured line.”
He was silent for what seemed like a long time before he replied, “All right. So . . . I assume you know what I want to discuss with you.”
“Would it have something to do with a professor in the Boston area who writes fairy tales with his twin?”
“Wh . . . ah, oh! . . . right. Yes. Correct.” That shouldn’t have been hard!
“Okay. We want to talk to you, too. And to others in your, ah, chain of command. But – and this is very, very important – we will need the meeting to be conducted under the strictest security and the highest level of confidentiality. I promise you, you will want it this way as well.”
“Why?” Grant countered.
How much could I say over an open line? I thought a minute. “Because the owners wish to discuss an exchange of value.”
Another pause, then Grant, equally carefully, said, “For the item?”
“For the know-how,” I said.
Dead silence.
“You’re shitting me?”
“No, sir,” I responded. “So . . . we’ll need to talk to someone in a position to discuss . . . ah . . . something with appropriate return value.”
Another long pause, then he said, “Can I reach you at this number?”
That seemed like . . . kind of a bad idea. The last thing I wanted was for them to try to track me. Especially since I didn’t have any idea where I was likely to be. “No. But if I can reach you at this number, I’ll call back. How long do you need to set something up?”
“Tomorrow, COB,” he responded. “This number is fine.”
“Thank you,” I responded. “I’ll call then.” I ended the call and looked at Janet. “I hope he’s got enough juice to cut through the bureaucratic nonsense.”
“ ’Course he does,” she responded. “Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl!”
“I do not . . . .” Worm began.
“Low humor,” I said, “is Professor Seldon’s specialty.”
* * * * *
Justin returned back to Northampton. Whatever was going on with Officer Wolf and Mr. Knight, they didn’t have anything that would give them cause to give him trouble. Not yet, anyhow. Meantime, he promised to get us some burner phones.
I dropped my own phone from some absurd height above the Connecticut river, followed a few moments later by its SIM Card. I was cheerful as I watched them accelerate away from me at 32 feet per second, per second. “Buh-bye, Siri! So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, good-bye . . . .”
Janet and I spent the night in the hold where we had first entered the ship. Our termite hosts made us reasonably comfortable by fabricating some cushions and blankets. It felt safer; Janet’s house might be watched, and at the moment we lacked resources to go elsewhere. We would need to get cash out of the safe deposit box, but without transportation we would spend a lot of time walking around Northampton, and I was looking pretty conspicuous at present.
“If we were in New York,” Janet had said, “People’d barely give your uniform a second look. Plenty of crazy people wandrin’ the streets there. In the Pioneer Valley, though . . . .”
Around 10:00 a.m., Janet got a text from Justin with coordinates for a pickup. The aliens beamed up the box Justin had put together. He sent five burner phones, $4,000 in cash and two sausage & pepper grinders from BBA.
Janet looked at the grinders and grinned. “Marry him, Hon!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I responded thoughtfully. “He should have known that BBA is famous for their kielbasa and sauerkraut. I might hold out for someone with better . . . .”
“Sausage?” Janet interjected before I could finish.
“Janet!!!!”
“What?” She took a bite of her grinder and closed her eyes for a moment of blissful enjoyment. “Damn, I was gettin’ hungry!”
I took a bite myself. And . . . yeah. Hunger’s the best seasoning and all that.
Janet cocked an eyebrow at me. “I know I was kiddin’ and all, but . . . he is kinda cute. And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
I used the excuse of chewing to put off responding to her question.
“C’mon, Jessica,” she said. “Girlfriends gotta dish. It’s one of the benefits – and duties – of bein’ in the club, so to speak.”
“But . . . there’s nothing to ‘dish’ about,” I said defensively. “He’s our lawyer.”
“No,” Janet responded with great precision. “He’s my lawyer. An’ he’s the termite's lawyer. But you kinda specifically left it so that he isn't your lawyer. Thought I missed that?”
I found myself playing with my hair, twisting a long, gold strand around the index finger of my right hand, while I avoided Janet’s scrutiny. “Well, it seemed like I didn’t need a lawyer myself . . . .”
“Uh huh,” Janet said. “Or just maybe you didn’t want him dredgin’ up some super-secret lawyer’s guild rule about non-fraternization or somethin’?”
I twisted the hair tighter, but had no other response.
“Jessica . . . You sure you’re ready for this?”
I decided that my playing stupid wasn’t going to make Janet any dumber. “I don’t know,” I answered quietly.
“Can you tell me what you’re thinkin’?”
I shook my head. “Not sure I’d characterize it as ‘thinking,’ exactly.”
She smiled and sang, “‘With the thoughts you’d be thinkin’, you could be another Lincoln . . . ‘“
I sighed. “‘If I only had a brain.’ Too right, I’m afraid. With the thoughts I'd be thinking, though, I’d be lucky to be another Roman Hruska.”
“Tell me what you’re feelin’, then,” Janet said. “I’m not just bein’ nosy. This is new to you. I might be able to help, and even if I’m not, it might help you to talk about it.”
“I . . . I know. But it’s so hard. I’ve been a guy for sixty years. Sixty years, Janet! And suddenly I’m . . . .” I was having trouble finishing the sentence.
“Not?” Janet offered.
I made an impatient gesture. “Yes. I mean, no, obviously not. But it’s not just that. It’s being . . . .”
Janet decided to be more helpful. “Attracted to guys? Sexually?”
I wanted to say “no.” It was embarrassing – so embarrassing! This was a woman who had been attracted to me, to James Wainwright, even though I’d been too blind to see it. And too timid to do anything about it. My face was burning with shame. But I nodded and whispered, “Yeah.”
I was shocked when Janet pulled me into a hug. “Jess, honey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Almost without my own volition, I wrapped my arms around her tightly and buried my face into her shoulder. “I’m so confused,” I confessed, suddenly in tears. “I look at Justin, and I want . . . I want . . . .”
Again, I couldn’t say it. Most immediately, I wanted him to kiss me. God, did I want it! And I wanted to kiss him back. I wanted to . . . . Even in the secret recesses of my mind, I couldn’t say the words.
“I know you do, Honey,” Janet was saying. “I know. And it’s perfectly normal. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“But I’m . . . .”
“No, you aren’t, and you know it,” she said, stopping my protest. “I know that my old friend is still in there” – her right hand cupped the back of my head – “And you’re still sharp as New York cheddar. But where love and desire and sex are concerned, it’s been real clear from almost the start that you’re all girl. A very hetero girl, too.”
“I know,” I confessed. “But it doesn’t just feel weird . . . it feels . . .” I didn’t want to say it! But it had to be said. “It feels disloyal. To you.” I continued crying into her shoulder, afraid to look at her.
But she gently pulled back and held me at arm’s length, looking at me with eyes devoid of their usual merriment. “Honey, I’ve had to let James go. It was hard, and I didn’t expect that. After all these years, it’s not like I was expectin’ some sort of epiphany, you know? But I did it. ’Cuz I knew you couldn’t let yourself be Jessica if I was holdin’ you back. Tryin’ to keep you as James.”
“I know I can’t make it right, Janet. But I’d sure like to stop hurting you!”
Janet looked distressed. “Dear God! You’re not becoming . . . earnest?”
That got me. I cracked up.
“Better,” she said. “Listen, girl. I’m not some heartbroken teenager. You know how to make it right! Stop holdin’ on to the person you’ve always been, and let yourself be Jessica. Don’t tie yourself in knots by constantly lookin’ back!”
“But what does that even mean?” I asked, frustrated.
“You can start by understandin’ that there’s nothin’ wrong with being attracted to Justin Abel. Not sayin’ you’ve gotta go out and jump his bones just ’cuz he isn’t your lawyer anymore. In fact, I’d kinda suggest you take it slow. Just . . . stop gettin’ all weird about it. Enjoy it, even.”
I took a deep breath, then another. Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded.
She took another bite of her grinder. “For what it’s worth, I expect his sausage is above average.”
“JANET!!!!”
* * * * *
Our new phones lacked any internet capabilities, so we had to work with the aliens to do some research during the course of the day to prepare for our evening call. We also worked out a way for them to make it appear that our call was originating from another location, just in case someone tried to trace us.
“Where should it look like we’re calling from?” I asked Janet.
“Does it matter?”
I thought about that. “I suppose it might. We don’t want to arouse suspicions. Beijing might be a bad choice, for instance.”
“It’s the U.S. Government,” she responded. “They’re suspicious of everyone.”
I smiled. “How about Madagascar?”
“I like it,” she said. “Exotic, though. What location says, ‘boring?’”
“There’s always North Dakota.”
“I dunno,” she said, ever the contrarian. “They’ve got . . . .”
I waited. Eventually, I coaxed. “Yes?”
“Rushmore?”
I shook my head. “SoDak.”
She shrugged. “Damn, you got me. I can’t think of anything interesting.” To Worm, she said, “You could pick some random wheat field.”
He chittered at the Science Guy, who chittered back and was eventually translated, “Do you want us to pick a wheat field that contains structures for holding weapons-grade uranium?”
“Wait, what?! No!!!” I said.
“Oh, right!” Janet said. “FedEx.”
I looked blank.
“ICBM’s, Jessica. World-wide delivery in half an hour or less, or your next one’s free.”
“Uh huh . . . Maybe not such a good idea.”
“Lennox is cute,” Janet said. “Ya know. Quaint. Ye Olde. Definitely non-threatening.”
“Yeah,” I said, weakly. “Let’s try that. Have the call appear to come from inside the Red Lion Inn. Anyone tracks us, they should at least get some good beer.”
“Only fair,” Janet agreed.
At 5:00 sharp I made the call.
“Grant.”
“This is Jessica James.”
“Are you familiar with Theodore Roosevelt Island?” he asked.
“He had an island?”
“Named after him,” Grant said. “It’s in the middle of the Potomac River, near Georgetown.”
“Oh, okay. You want to meet there?”
“Can you be there tomorrow? Say, 7:00 a.m.?”
“A moment.” I covered the phone and asked Worm, then confirmed the place and time with Grant.
“My boss will be with me,” he said. “Dressed for a morning run. At the base of the statue.”
We ended the call.
“We’ve got a problem,” Janet said.
I was personally thinking we had a whole bunch of them. “Which one?”
“They're gonna show up looking inconspicuous. I could pass as someone about to go for a morning stroll, but . . . .”
“Are you sayin’ my mini dress and go-go boots are impractical?”
“They're practical, girl. For certain, ah, pursuits.”
“Jogging not being among them,” I agreed ruefully. “Especially since our hosts don’t understand underwear.”
Janet snorted. Then giggled. “You might catch a few eyes,” she agreed.
“While we’re listing problems . . . I really need a shower,” I said.
“Yeah, I’ve been meanin’ to talk to you about that,” Janet smirked. Then she sighed. “Me, too, bein’ honest. And a change of clothes. Even if these are inconspicuous, I’ve already slept in them.”
I frowned. “We’ve got cash, and I guess we could get clothes. But we can’t get a hotel without an ID. Credit Card too, usually.”
“And won’t that ring alarm bells,” Janet responded.
I thought for a minute. “Ensign Worm,” I asked, “Are you able to determine whether anyone is watching Professor Seldon’s house?”
He looked at me strangely. Strangely even for him, that is. “Why they would watch house? Does it do things?”
“An expression, Ensign. But in this case, it’s possible that authorities might be watching it to see if Professor Seldon returns.”
“Ah. So that Danno can ‘book’ her?”
With the aliens, anything involving rule breaking was always dangerous. “More likely just ask questions that we don’t really want to answer right now. As we have explained – your lawyer, too – neither of us have broken any laws.”
Science Guy, through Siri, said “Many humans have passed near the structure from which we beamed you up. Some in vehicles, some without vehicles. Some being led by members of a quadrupedal species whose level of sentience we have not been able to assess.”
“Plenty smart, dogs,” Janet asserted.
“Not now!” I pleaded.
“So long, and thanks for all the fish!” she said, the devil’s own twinkle firmly back in her eyes.
She was right. I needed to read more, if only to understand half of what she was saying. It was maddening.
Worm looked from one of us to the other. “Should we assessments conduct on ‘dogs?’”
“No,” we both said together, though probably for different reasons.
I added, “Sentient or not, they are not technologically sophisticated, and will not have access to uranium of any kind.”
Science Guy resumed chittering. “How can we determine whether passing humans – or dogs – are ‘watching’ the house instead of just ‘seeing’ it?”
It was a good question, even though the answer would be obvious to most humans. I thought for a minute before responding. “There are a couple of things to look for. First, are any humans remaining in one place, in sight of the house, for more than, say fifteen minutes? Does the same vehicle pass by the house at regular intervals – like, once every hour or two?”
Janet picked up the theme. “Are there any cars on the street painted in a black-and-white pattern, like the one Officer Wolf drove?”
In his more animated voice, Worm said, “The black and white patrol car has an overhead valve V8 engine. It develops 325 horsepower at 4800 RPM’s. It accelerates from zero to sixty in seven seconds.”
“Ummm,” said Janet, looking a bit nonplussed.
“Actually,” I said, “it wouldn’t need most of those features and wouldn’t have them, prolly.”
Worm didn’t look discouraged. “Was not certain what meant these words.”
“Really,” I said, “if there are any cars parked within sight of the house, with humans inside of them, for more than fifteen minutes, that would be a good indication of surveillance.”
Science Guy fiddled with dials for a bit before chittering his response. “Based on analysis of sensor data using the specified criteria, the structure was being ‘watched’ last night and this morning. There was at least one vehicle parked on the street with someone inside it until approximately noon today. There has been no activity meeting your search criteria in the last five hours and thirty-six minutes, by local measurement.”
Janet and I looked at each other.
“Can’t say it gives me a warm fuzzy,” she said.
I agreed, but . . . she wasn’t the one who would have to attend a critically important meeting wearing go-go boots and a stretchy red dress that barely came to mid-thigh – without even a bra – if we didn’t take some kind of action. “Let’s risk it,” I responded.
Janet grinned. No way she was going to let me outdo her when she perceived that adventure might be involved. “That’s the spirit, girl!”
“Elder,” I asked, “I believe that it would maximize the likelihood of our mission being successful if Professor Seldon and I attended tomorrow’s meeting properly rested, cleaned and, ah, dressed. Would it be possible for you to drop us at Professor Seldon’s house, pick us up tomorrow in the early morning, and deliver us to Roosevelt Island?”
The Elder’s chittering was translated, “You are acting as our ‘agents.’ We will assist your transportation as requested.”
We waited until full dark – late, this time of year – before being lowered down to the surface, minimizing the chance that someone would see something peculiar. The aliens explained that their ship employed numerous stealth technologies, but their efficacy was improved by being at a distance. Apparently we were being raised and lowered by some form of what we would call a tractor beam.
“Somethin’ about this just makes me want to shout “Yeee-Haaaa!” Janet said as we began our swift descent. “But I’ll do it quietly, just for you!” Her wicked grin was infectious.
When we got to the house, we discovered that someone – probably Officer Wolf – had locked the doors before leaving. Janet’s keys, like her wallet, were all in her purse.
“No worries,” Janet said. “I’ve got a spare under the back door mat.”
“No-one would ever think to check there,” I teased her, as we walked around to the back of the house.
“I know, I know! Everybody tells me that . . . .” She lifted up the mat and stared blankly at the emptiness underneath it. “And . . . FUCK! I finally listened to them!”
“So, where did you put it?” I asked, reasonably.
“I’m tryin’ to remember,” she said crossly. “Why d’ya think I kept it under the mat all those years?”
She led me over to the garage, where we checked on top of window sills. To the back yard, where we checked under some loose bricks in a retaining wall. To her patio, where she searched the underside of her chairs. She was muttering and cursing the whole time.
We almost jumped out of our skins when we were caught in the beam of a flashlight.
“Who’s . . . Oh! Janet, is that you?”
Janet’s eyes briefly closed in relief. “You were expectin’ Hamlet’s ghost? Damn, Peg! You scared the crap outta me!”
“I just saw someone rummaging around, and it didn’t look like you were home. Everything okay?” A woman walked into the backyard, dimly lit by a quarter moon. She was wearing slippers and a bright yellow quilted dressing gown; her white hair was spiked, wild, and exuberantly disdainful of any notions of fashion.
“I’m fine, but I locked myself out and I don’t remember where I put my spare key,” Janet said.
“In my cookie jar, remember?” Peg said. She looked at me. “My goodness! Did you come from a costume party? I love Star Trek!”
“Just a little cosplay,” I said quickly. “There’s a group of us on campus.”
Peg giggled. “Campus? You can’t possibly be out of high school! But . . . rock on, girl! I burned my bra back in the day too!”
“Ah . . . thanks,” I said weakly, not wanting to admit that after a day of going commando, even my perpetually perky pair of peaches were eager for some architectural support.
“Peggy, would you mind very much . . . ?” Janet suggested.
“Oh! Of course! Won’t be a minute!” She trotted back into her house and emerged moments later with Janet’s spare key. “What was all that commotion about yesterday evening? Men running around, your door open. Even a police officer!” She made the presence of a police officer sound positively salacious.
“Just a bit of a misunderstandin’, and I think we’ve got it all cleared up,” Janet said.
“Oh!!! I want to hear all the details!”
“Of course, Peg, but . . . not tonight, okay?” Janet responded. “I’m pretty beat.”
“Alright, then,” her neighbor said. “I’ll let you go, but remember, I want the full story!”
“You got it, girl,” Janet responded. As Peg returned to her house, Janet sighed. “Neighbors!”
We got inside and left the lights off. Janet took a quick shower while I went into my room, stripped out of my ‘uniform,’ and selected the clothes that I wanted to wear to tomorrow’s meeting. When Janet was done, we switched up.
I was just rinsing the conditioner out of my hair when Janet burst into the bathroom. “Luke, we’re gonna have company!”
“What!” Damn, I’d promised myself I was going to stop saying that!
“Worm just called the burner phone. I guess they were monitoring communications. The police are on their way.”
“Peg?”
“I’d guess so. Wolf probably asked her to call. Damned neighbors!”
I was toweling myself off while sprinting back to my bedroom. “How long do we have?”
“Worm said five minutes, thirty seven seconds.”
I threw on a bathrobe, which was all Janet was wearing too. “Grab clothes for tomorrow . . . your purse. Anything else?”
Janet was dashing back to her own room. “Can’t think of anything!”
“Your bookbag?”
She shook her head. “Empty. Civil forfeiture, I expect.”
Three minutes later, we stepped onto the front porch then slipped around to the side of the house on the other side of Peg’s place. We each had a small duffle bag. “Two to beam up!”
“This is starting to get old,” I observed as we floated up into the night sky.
“Nonsense, Jessica,” Janet admonished. “This is effing fun!”
“Fine, great,” I groused. “But couldn’t the fun have waited until we had a decent night’s sleep?”
“We can fly, we can fly, we can fly!” Janet sang, pretty deliberately off-key.
“And maybe coffee in the morning?”
Janet stopped singing. “Damn. You had to remind me, didn’t you!”
We were back on the ship in almost no time at all, and Worm was there to greet us in the hatch. “Are now attired appropriate?” Even Worm’s flat voice sounded dubious.
In fact, we were both still in bathrobes and slippers, with towels around our heads. “No, Ensign,” I said, gently. “But we will be, for tomorrow’s meeting. Thank you for the warning.”
“I glad am,” he replied. “I was think that this clothing set was not for meeting appropriate, based on the transmissions. Correct, yes?”
“You are correct,” I assured him. “Your sense of human aesthetics and cultural expectations is improving.”
“Excellent. Then would this be the time appropriate to discuss anatomically pleasing proportions?” He inquired.
“NO!” I said.
“It’s a cultural thing,” Janet explained. “Jessica might be insulted if you suggest that portions of her anatomy are, umm, overgenerous.”
Worm thought about that for a moment. “Understand this, I do. Can we your proportions discuss instead, Professor Seldon?”
She squinted at Worm. “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
“I understand do not . . . .”
“The answer’s ‘Hell No!’ Not if you want to see your homeworld again, Sonny!”
* * * * *
We had another night sleeping in the hatch area with pillows and blankets. It worked, kind of, though Janet was pretty stiff in the morning. Like James Wainwright would be after the first couple of nights in a tent at the beginning of a long hike. My seventeen-year-old body was far less susceptible to those types of aches and pains, but I decided I wasn’t going to say anything about that. I wanted to see my homeworld again too!
Since we were supposed to blend in as people who were getting a bit of morning exercise, Janet was wearing a pair of gray sweats, with “Gryphon” and our school mascot emblazoned on them.
I didn’t have anything comparable, and it’s probably not what a girl my apparent age would wear anyhow. I went with a pair of plain black leggings and an electric blue sports bra under a sleeveless white T-Shirt. I put my long, gold hair into a high, braided ponytail. It wasn’t the most professional look, but I would certainly pass for a jogger without any problem. A little light makeup and I was as ready as I was going to be.
Janet looked me over and smiled. “I think kids your age would say that you slay, girl!”
“Then let’s go find us some dragons, shall we?”
It was still dark when the aliens lowered us down, but it was summer, and it was D.C., so the air was thick and definitely not cold. The island isn’t large, though it’s covered with trees that create the illusion of distance from civilization. We followed the path to the statue of Theodore Roosevelt and reached it within a few minutes.
Janet gave the statue a critical appraisal, since she was an academic with nothing better to do. “Damn. Looks like he’s plannin’ to exhort the masses.”
“At this hour? How uncivilized!”
“Nekulturny,” she agreed.
“He can wait ’til we’re gone,” I said. “I’m not much in the mood for speeches.”
We waited. I passed the time by doing some light stretches. I figured it would look right if casual observers happened to show up.
Janet sat on a bench and watched me, a sardonic look on her face. “When I up, down, touch the ground, puts me in the mood . . . .” she sang tunelessly. Tastelessly too, I thought.
My burner phone rang. The ID said, “Lennox, Massachusetts,” and the time read 6:45.
“Jessica James.”
“Ensign Worm is this. Patching Science Officer.”
Siri’s voice cut in. “Jessica James. Sensors indicate that persons you would consider ‘authorities’ have arrived at the end of the bridge to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Presently, they are remaining in their vehicles.”
I thought about that. “Janet, they may take us into custody. I don’t know. Maybe you should . . . .”
“Can it, girl,” she growled. “You go, I go.”
I looked at her helplessly. There was no sense arguing with Janet, and we didn’t have a lot of time anyhow. I took a breath and said, “Thank you, Ensign. Officer. We will proceed. If we are taken into custody it may be some time before we can contact you again.”
“We cannot indefinitely wait, Jessica James,” Worm warned flatly.
“If we can’t call you, talk to attorney Justin Abel,” I advised.
“Yes. Agreed.”
We signed off.
“Worm could always beam us back up if there’s trouble,” Janet suggested.
“Might be better if he didn’t, though. Even if the government types lock us up, they still need to talk to us.”
Janet thought about that and shrugged, acquiescing.
I gave up on stretches and was pacing, full of nerves. Birds were making a racket and the sounds of the city’s awakening began to penetrate through the oaks.
Three people appeared on the path, approaching us. I recognized Grant right away. To his right paced a tall, slender man with dark, straight hair, silvered temples and a distinguished look. We had seen his photo while doing our research the previous afternoon: Ranveer Singh, DHS’s Undersecretary for Science and Technology.
The woman on Grant’s left didn’t immediately look familiar. My (now diminutive) height and medium brown hair . . . but she was wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. When they got close, she was the one who spoke for the group. “Professor Seldon? And . . . Jesse James, is it? Gavin’s report didn’t do you justice.”
She removed her cap and sunglasses as she spoke. With her voice and her telegenic looks, the President’s Science Advisor was a staple on the Sunday News shows. It appeared that either Grant or Grimm had plenty of juice.
I couldn’t resist. “It’s ‘Jessica,’” I said, extending a hand. “Doctor Livingston, I presume?”
. . . . To be continued. With suitably low humor.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 11: The Emissary
The President’s Science Advisor quirked a half smile at my riposte. “My parents warned me that I’d get that line a lot, when I went for my doctorate.”
“A lawyer warned me about the whole ‘Jesse James’ thing as well,” I replied.
“Well . . . honors are even, I suppose.” Her smile became more symmetrical. “Before we begin – Mr. Grant, if you would please?”
The stocky man in the center of their formation turned his fanny pack around and turned a nob that was just visible on one side. He looked at his inexpensive wrist-watch – I hadn’t seen one in a while – then looked at Dr. Averil Livingston and nodded once, sharply.
“I apologize for that,” Dr. Livingston said. “We agree with your request that this meeting be conducted secretly. I’m afraid any electronic devices in a five yard radius are no longer functional.”
Janet said, “Damn! Where can I get one of those puppies? Be pretty useful around some car radios in my neighborhood!”
Dukkov Earl Grant smiled like a shark. “It would also, I’m afraid, disable the car itself.”
“Twofer!” Janet said, delighted by the idea.
I shook my head. “I wish you’d mentioned what you were going to do first. You’ve also eliminated my ability to communicate with, ah, the owners of the technology.”
Dr. Ranveer Singh, the Undersecretary for Science and Technology for the Department of Homeland Security, interjected, “Shall we walk, please?” We began to move towards one of the paths. “This is just a preliminary discussion. You’ll have plenty of time to make calls . . . . if we get that far.”
“Maybe,” I said, “But . . . I didn’t memorize their number. Or the number for the phone you just slagged. Time’s not the only problem here.”
“That won’t be an issue, Ms. James,” Dr. Singh replied. “We obtained telephone company records for the phones you used to call Mr. Grant, as well as Dr. Seldon’s phone records, pursuant to a FISA warrant.”
“FISA?! We’re American citizens!” I was more surprised than upset. Nothing in those records worried me – in fact, it might help. But FISA is an acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Services Act.
Grant gave me a look. “You wouldn’t happen to have a passport you can show us, would you, Ms. James?”
“It’s not a great picture,” I replied, lamely.
Dr. Singh said, “The basis for the warrant was our assessment that you are not acting on behalf of American companies or citizens.”
“Just what information did you consider in your assessment?” Janet inquired. “I mean, before you decided to play Inspector Clouseau with our phone records?”
“That information is classified,” Dr. Singh said repressively.
I looked at Dr. Livingston, who had been very quiet during this back-and-forth. “Please, Doctor. Beginnings are difficult. If we know what you’ve looked at, we may be able to explain what you’re actually seeing.”
“But, if you are foreign agents, having a better idea of what we already know would help you to deceive us,” Grant said. He sounded almost apologetic.
I kept my eyes on Dr. Livingston. After a moment, she nodded. “It’s not a particularly thick file,” she conceded. “Two months ago, there was nothing remarkable about Dr. Seldon. And, as Mr. Grant just suggested, no record of a ‘Jessica James,’ at all. Our analysis was based on Dr. Grimm’s report, the records of the Northampton Police Department, an interview with a Nothampton physician, and a review of a lab report on some bloodwork.”
“Quibble, Wolf and Grimm,” Janet growled. “They sound like billboard lawyers. Act like ‘em too.”
“Not your favorite people?” Dr. Singh asked.
“We have legitimate complaints with each of them,” I said, working hard to sound reasonable. “But we can put that aside for now. When we met with Professor Grimm, he indicated that the battery specifications we provided were far beyond anything currently available. I assume that the battery passed all tests, which is the basis for your FISA analysis – and the only reason we’re having this conversation.”
“That’s . . .” Dr. Singh began.
Dr. Livingston cut him off. “Obvious,” she finished. “You’re correct. Professor Grimm confirmed that the battery exceeded all of the specs you provided by at least fifteen percent. More, for some parameters. Dr. Singh and I have personally reviewed Professor Grimm’s testing protocols and results. The tech, at least, appears to be legitimate.”
I mentally patted myself on the back for having worked that out. I was feeling hopeful. A turn in the trail gave us a beautiful view of the spire of Georgetown University across the Potomac, gleaming in the morning sunlight.
“So,” I said, “I assume you appreciate what this tech would mean. How valuable it is.”
Dr. Livingston shrugged. “I understand the ‘owners’ want to make a trade, so I suppose I should say how confident I am that we can match the battery’s performance in a few years. But that wouldn’t be very credible under the circumstances.”
“No,” I agreed.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Dr. Singh said. “How much do ‘they’ want for the know-how?”
“They don’t want money at all,” I replied. “They want some highly processed material available to only a handful of governments.”
“Industrial-strength bullshit?” Grant guessed.
“Every government has that,” Janet countered.
Dr. Singh ignored the byplay and stopped dead, causing the rest of us to stop as well, just short of the footbridge connecting the island to the Virginia shore. “What kind of ‘highly-processed materials?’” The warning in his voice was palpable.
Janet and I looked at each other. She shrugged, as if to say, “Here goes nothing.”
“Weapons-grade uranium,” I said, striving to keep my voice even.
Three sets of eyes nailed me in place. None of them looked remotely friendly.
Janet finally broke the hostile silence. “Well, that’s put a damper on the morning, hasn’t it?”
Dr. Singh turned to look at Dr. Livingston. “You accept our conclusion now, I assume? If their wonderful wooden horse could talk, it’d say “Opa!”
“Well . . . “ she equivocated.
“Dr. Livingston – Averil – you have to see this is a scam!” The Undersecretary looked exasperated.
Dr. Livingston appeared conflicted. Uncertain.
“It is no scam,” I said, my voice urgent. “You know the tech is real. More importantly, the owners assure us that there are no impediments to commercial production . . . .”
“And with nothing more than that, we’re supposed to give away the most dangerous material in our arsenal of weapons? Probably to terrorists? Who are you people working for?” Dr. Singh was positively furious.
“Well . . . .” I said, and stopped.
“You see,” Janet tried, before also finding it hard to continue.
“Aaaaand,” Grant said, “here’s where the space aliens come in.”
My temper was starting to flare as well.
“As a matter of fact, yes! Not that this should be news to you. I told Dr. Bell, he told Officer Wolf, and I confirmed it.”
“Uh huh,” Dr. Singh said, his voice indicating deep skepticism. “Officer Wolf also wrote that you claimed to be a missing professor of something or other.”
“That’s ‘Distinguished Professor of Something-or-Other’ to you,” I said indignantly.
“Riiiiiight,” he said. “But according to the police, the ‘distinguished’ professor who’s missing is supposed to be an old guy.”
Janet was pissed. “That professor is a person, with a name – James Wainwright! A good friend of mine for thirty years! And not for nothin’, ‘sixty’ is a long, long way from ‘old.’”
Janet’s fury had no effect on the undersecretary. “Whatever,” he said, dismissively. “In case you haven’t noticed, she isn't old enough to buy beer, sure’s hell she ain’t male, and I’ve seen dachshunds that look more ‘distinguished.’”
The moment appeared to be rapidly slipping away. “The aliens are advanced in biological sciences as well as physical and materials sciences. I was given a shot which changed my physical appearance . . . .”
“Into one that just happens to be very easy on the eye,” Grant assessed.
“Very easy,” Dr. Singh agreed.
“Particularly to the male gaze,” Dr. Livingston said dryly, giving her colleagues a look. But then she sighed. “You must admit, Ms. James, that for space aliens, they seem to have a firm grasp on the finer points of human aesthetics.”
“That’s kind of my fault,” I said ruefully.
Dr. Singh snickered. “I’ll bet.”
“Actually,” Janet said sarcastically, “the aliens think they might have gone overboard on the bust and rear end. They keep carping about the proportions.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Undersecretary opined, thoughtfully.
“Does everybody get to have an opinion about that?” I said, exasperated. “Really?”
“It does kind of go with the territory, I’m afraid.” The Science Advisor, a very good looking woman herself, had some cause to know. “Nonetheless, gentlemen” – she gave her male colleagues another warning look – “I expect the President would prefer that we stay on task?”
“I bet he'd have an opinion,” Grant muttered.
“Did you say something, Mr. Grant?” Dr. Livingston’s tone could have lowered ambient temperatures on Neptune.
“Just thinking out loud, Ma’am,” he said with a slow smile.
“I’d certainly welcome some thinking, Mr. Grant,” she admonished. “Preferably with the head between your ears, if you get my drift.”
I decided it was time to try another tack. “You have my phone records – and my texts! You know the aliens contacted me!”
Dr. Singh looked amused. “Oh, please! Did they also give you a business card that said ‘Space Aliens?’ The texts are consistent with your story, sure. But we’d expect that from scammers.”
I tried again. “Were you able to trace my location during the times that I spoke to Mr. Grant?”
“NSA believes the signals were bounced off of satellites.” Singh’s response appeared to be addressed to Dr. Livingston rather than me.
“Should’ve tried bouncin’ you off a satellite,” Janet said. “Might have improved your analytical abilities. Where the hell did they find you, anyway? The Dim Horizons Daycare and Kennel?”
Dr. Livingston still looked conflicted. Ignoring Janet and me, she asked Dr. Singh, “What about the blood tests? Multiple DNA?”
“The lab is convinced that the sample was contaminated.”
“Why?” I asked, exasperated. “Because they’ve never seen anything like it, that’s why! Listen, you can explain away every single piece of evidence, but all of it, combined? Where’s the logic in that?”
“Very simple,” Singh replied. “It doesn’t matter whether you multiply zero by one or by fifty. The end result is still zero.”
“Then what on earth could ever possibly convince you people?” I demanded.
“On earth?” Dr. Singh smiled coldly. “I can’t imagine.”
“Why would an advanced race of aliens want our weapons anyway?” Dr. Livingston inquired.
“They don’t,” I said. “They want the material, not the weapons.”
“There’s a reason it’s described as ‘weapons grade.’” Now Dr. Singh sounded pedantic. “What the hell else is it good for? Breakfast cereal?”
“Ummm,” I said, knowing this wasn’t going to help, “Apparently the aliens use it as an aphrodisiac.”
Everyone was looking at me again. This time they didn’t look angry so much as dumbfounded.
I felt the need to add, “No, I don’t know why or how. Do I look like a xenobiologist?”
Grant said, “Ah, no. More like a cheerleader, really.”
“If only she were rooting for the home team,” Dr. Singh added. He turned to Dr. Livingston. “Averil?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I apologize. It just looked so . . . Well. Too good to be true, I guess. You were right.”
“Wait!” I said.
“Please proceed, Mr. Grant,” said Dr. Singh.
Grant stepped forward. “I regret that I need to take you both into custody for potential violations of the Espionage Act. If you'll come with me, please?” Planting a firm hand in the smalls of our backs, he began walking us both to the foot bridge.
As we were propelled onto the span, I looked back over my shoulder, desperate to salvage the situation. Dr. Livingston ignored me and continued speaking to Dr. Singh.
“Why did we even come here?” I groaned.
“All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” Janet agreed.
“Philadelphia?” I said blankly.
“If they lock us up,” Janet said, “maybe they’ll let you do a bit of reading. You might even learn somethin.’”
But I wasn’t listening to Janet. Dr. Singh and Dr. Livingston had followed us onto the bridge, and I heard Dr. Singh tell the Science Advisor, “We’ll have the lab pull the shielding off . . . “
I spun around so fast it caught Grant by surprise and he stumbled. “No!” I cried out, urgently.
Grant grabbed for me. In desperation, I shoved him. He was off balance and fell down.
I had the senior pair’s attention. Before Grant could get up, I said, “Please! You’ll be putting people in great danger – it’ll explode!”
“But you would say that, wouldn’t you?” Doctor Singh countered. “Don’t you worry. We’ll crack it and figure out what you’re playing with – and who!”
“Whom,” I said, automatically.
“I’d be surprised if you can figure out how to put on your pants without help,” Janet said, disgusted. “Where’d you get that doctorate? Screw U?”
I opened my mouth to repeat my warning, but I was spun around and Grant locked me in a tight grip, squeezing both elbows painfully.
Grant no longer had a free hand to spare for Janet, who leaned against the bridge railing and gave him an evil look. “So I’m guessin’ you don’t mind if I wander off? Despite my bein’ a dangerous terrorist an’ all.”
“Just walk in front of me,” Grant grated.
“I don’t turn my back on jackals,” she responded. “Don’t take orders from ‘em either.”
“Get moving!” he barked.
“Get stuffed!” she replied.
“What?”
“It’s English. In England, anyway, and I suppose they oughta know. Meantime, you can assume I’m bein’ rude and generally uncooperative.”
“Resisting arrest?” Grant inquired, in a deceptively mild voice.
“I ain’t seen no stinkin’ badge. Far as I know, bein’ the Duke of Earl might – maybe – give you the right to order coffee at Starbucks. And get some, even, long as you pay for it.”
Grant ground his teeth, no doubt cursing his parents, living or dead. I would have felt some sympathy, but he was clearly unwilling to release either of my elbows. Janet was, equally clearly, not going to move on her own.
But Dr. Singh waved vigorously, and two men in dark sunglasses got out of a car in the parking lot by the end of the bridge. They quickly began crossing to where Grant, Janet and I were standing.
“Janet,” I said, “It’s no use.”
“Oh, fine!” She was completely disgusted. She turned and marched grimly towards Singh’s reinforcements.
“Tom, take this one,” one of the approaching men said, indicating Janet. “I’ll take the other.”
“Rank sure has its privileges, don’t it?” Tom replied, eyeing me wistfully while dutifully moving in Janet’s direction.
“Mr. Grant,” I said with quiet urgency as the supervisor approached, “I’m trying to prevent a disaster. Please! Don’t let them tamper with that battery!”
“Above my paygrade,” he replied.
My frustration and anger boiled over. “Then I assume you’ll be volunteering for that duty? Or are you only brave enough to face down teenage girls?”
He stiffened, but said nothing.
“Officer?” I said to the approaching security, making the word a question.
“Sergeant,” he corrected. “Sergeant Mattia Ottuso.”
“I'll be happy to cooperate, Sergeant, but I would appreciate seeing some evidence that you are a sworn law enforcement officer.”
He gave me a quizzical look, but pulled out a wallet and showed me a badge.
“Federal Protective Service?” I asked. “That’s a new one. Just for the record, I’m not feeling very protected.”
He looked uncomfortable, but said, “Will you come with me, please, Miss?”
“As soon as this Profile in Courage deigns to let me go.”
Grant released my elbows. “All yours, Sergeant.”
I stepped forward. “And where might we be going this fine morning, Sergeant?”
“The car?”
Why he made it a question was beyond me. Honestly, he didn’t look like the sharpest formaggio in the fridge. But there was nothing else I could do. I resumed walking.
Janet and “Tom” were waiting just past the end of the bridge for us to catch up. Two more men in suits and sunglasses got out of a second parked car and walked toward them. We’d almost reached the group when Sergeant Ottuso called ahead, “Keep him back, Trey.”
I looked to where Ottuso was pointing and saw a man on foot approaching the bridge from the bike path between the river and the G.W. Parkway. A man wearing an old fashioned gray pinstripe suit . . . and flip-flops. I picked up my pace and slipped past Janet and Tom.
One of the security people – Trey, I presume – walked briskly towards Ensign Worm to intercept him, saying “Sorry, sir, “ but whatever he intended to say next was moot. The Ensign made a move that was too quick to follow and was suddenly past the officer.
“Hey!” Ottuso shouted behind me.
Worm was just yards away. He stretched out his hand to give me a burner phone to replace the one Grant had destroyed. And the world, suddenly, went mad.
“Gun!!!” Ottuso shouted.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tom raising a weapon.
“No!” Janet screamed, bringing a hand down to knock the officer’s arm.
“No!” screamed Doctor Livingston, suddenly, and too late, sprinting down the last section of the bridge.
“No!” I screamed, lunging forward to knock Worm down.
There was a clap like thunder and my chest exploded in agony.
“Noooooo!” screamed Tom, as my world went dark.
I scream, you scream, we all scream . . . . My mind, detached, spun down a rabbit hole. The last thing I heard was Janet’s anguished wail.
“JAMES!!!”
* * * * *
My hearing returned first. What I mostly heard was Janet cursing a blue streak and keeping everyone back. “Guy says he’s a doctor, and unlike YOU highly-credentialed thumb-suckers, he might be the kind that actually helps people. Stay the fuck back!”
Another voice . . . Ottuso? “You’ve got paramedic training, don’t you, Tom?”
“Three courses . . . .” The voice sounded young – and shaky.
“You even step toward her and I’ll feed your balls to slugfish!” Janet again.
“What’s he doing?”
“What’s that?”
I didn’t recognize either voice. In the distance, I heard the sound of an approaching siren.
A low voice, near my ear, with a very flat affect said, “Move eyebrow if hear me can, Jessica James.”
I moved an eyebrow.
I felt hands on my head, moving it back and forth. There was a tug on my ear and a stinging sensation. “You say would, ‘open microphone,’” Worm said softly. “We monitor now. Your species . . . I doubt.”
I opened my eyes just a fraction – enough to see Worm’s form bending over me. I seemed to be lying on my back, though I couldn’t remember how I got there. “Worm,” I murmured, “Beginnings are difficult.”
“Ah. Like a TV pilot?”
“Well . . . sort of.” There was more to it – a lot more – but no time to explain. “Don’t judge us by the first episode, okay?”
He thought for a moment before saying, “You talk. We listen. Like E.F. Hutton.”
I would have to think about what he meant by that.
The sound of the siren was close, closer, then stopped. I heard the sound of doors opening and male voices shouting, “Move, move, move!!!”
Worm looked at me one more time, gave a very theatrical wink, and, using his more animated voice, said, “And now, for my next impression – Jesse Owens!” He disappeared from my sight.
“Hey!!!” Ottuso again. “Stop!!!”
Not again! I sat up and opened my eyes. Just then, I heard a distant splash.
Turning my head, I saw three of the four security guards at the edge of the parking lot, looking down towards the river. Mercifully, none of them had drawn a weapon.
“He won’t get far in that suit,” one of them said. The Sergeant looked back, turning his attention to Grant. “Should I pursue?”
But no-one was paying any attention to them. “Jessica!” Janet shouted, and ran to me, arriving seconds before the paramedics. Tom, looking green but relieved, was right behind her.
“Stand aside, ma’am,” a paramedic said brusquely.
“Fuck off,” Janet snarled, leaving him momentarily nonplussed. “You’re still with us?” she asked me anxiously.
“Think so. I’m a bit lightheaded. What happened?”
One of the paramedics put his hands on Janet and said, urgently, “Ma’am, she’s bleeding out!”
Was I bleeding? I didn’t feel like I was bleeding. I looked down and felt slightly faint. Not sure I’d ever seen that much blood before. But I was confident I wasn’t bleeding. “Help me up,” I said to Janet.
She tried, but the paramedic got in her way. “Ma’am – trust us, please!”
Oh, fine, I thought, as the two of them struggled. I got one leg under me, then the other. Suddenly I felt supporting hands on one arm. “Okay? Lift,” Doctor Livingston said quietly, right beside my ear.
I got to my feet.
The paramedic stopped wrangling with Janet and looked at me, stunned.
My head swam, but I closed my eyes and it got better. I felt a gentle touch near my left shoulder. My sodden shirt being pushed out of the way.
“Well?” That was the Undersecretary’s voice. Singh.
“The slightest evidence of scarring. Nothing else.” That was Livingston. “Based on her color, though, she’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh, you don’t say.” Janet. Not in a good mood.
I opened my eyes again. Dr. Livingston was looking around, a frown on her made-for-greenroom face.
She reached a sudden decision. “Too many people, Ranveer,” she said quietly to Doctor Singh. “Collect your team. Get them back to St. Elizabeths, and make sure they know everything that happened today is covered by official secrets, six times over. Brief the Secretary only. Let me borrow Grant.”
She turned to the paramedics. In a louder voice, she said, “I’m sorry; it was a false alarm. We saw what we thought was blood, but we were wrong.”
The paramedic she was addressing looked dubious. “But you just said . . . .”
“Obviously, I erred.” Her voice was iron.
“Honest,” I said, trying to be helpful. “I’m fine. It’s just a flesh wound . . . .”
“Teach you to run with a ketchup bottle,” Janet scolded.
The paramedic still looked dubious. I’m guessing because he’d seen ketchup before. And blood. That none of our explanations agreed with each other probably didn’t help.
Doctor Livingston’s voice suddenly took on the sharp crack of command. “You got a hearing problem, Mister?”
The paramedic looked startled and began to move. Quickly. “No Ma’am!” In extremely short order, he and his crew were back in their vehicle and moving away.
Doctor Singh hadn’t moved. “You're not in my chain of command, Doctor Livingston,” he said softly.
She gave him a hard look. “You want to have that fight right now?” Her voice was equally soft . . . but it had an edge that was undeniable. “You and your team didn’t exactly cover yourselves in glory today. This fluster chuck’s all on you.”
He swallowed. “When you make your report . . . .”
She cut him off. “You won’t be there,” she said sweetly. “Grant might be . . . if you loan him to me.”
“Look, Averil,” Dr. Singh began.
“LATER, dammit!” she hissed. “As in, ‘not now,’ and ‘not in the middle of the bloody parking lot!’”
“Literally,” Janet growled.
Dr. Singh nodded, looking unhappy. “Grant, assist Dr. Livingston.” He moved off to collect his team.
Grant, Janet, Dr. Livingston and I were alone. Dr. Livingston said, “Ms. James – or, honestly, Professor Wainwright, if you prefer – I do think you need blood. Or plasma, or something. Something other than Gatorade, anyway. Not my specialty. If we can get you to a secure facility, we can get that done discreetly. I’d like to go with you. And Mr. Grant.”
Hearing a menacing sound associated with irate watchdogs, she added, “and Professor Seldon, of course. Would that be acceptable?”
“Oh, Oysters come and walk with us, the Walrus did beseech!” Janet said darkly.
But I nodded, agreeing. I couldn’t continue to stand for much longer. Besides . . . Livingston was willing to call me Professor Wainwright? Maybe it was even worth getting shot, for that. I would need a bit more evidence of good faith before I’d go that far.
Grant drove what looked like an unmarked government SUV – black, naturally – and Dr. Livingston rode shotgun. Janet joined me in the back seat. “How’r you doin,’ Hon?” she asked as we sped into the city.
“I’ve had better days,” I admitted. “I mean, what with being called a liar, arrested, accused of espionage, getting shot . . . . “
“Worse than a curriculum committee meeting?” Janet asked.
I thought it over. “Yeah. . . . I guess so. I mean, unless Dean Devereaux is chairing it.”
Janet rolled her eyes. No-one had a higher opinion of the dean than Janet, and Janet thought the woman was coruscatingly dull – a shining example of the Peter Principle.
After a moment, I said, “I feel better than I’d expect to, somehow. Are you sure I was shot?”
Janet shuddered and looked ill. “Trust me, darlin’. You were most definitely shot.”
Dr. Livingston added, “Your shirt’s still got the holes, front and back. You should, too. But you don’t.”
“What’d I miss?” I asked.
“Worm was right there,” Janet answered. “He said, ‘Doctor, am’ in that weird way of his, and I remembered you’d said he used that old McCoy line when he gave you the shot – the one about being a doctor. So . . . well, look, Jessica. I’ll be honest. I'm not a doctor – not an MD, anyways – but even I knew you were gonna bleed out before any help could show up. So I let him try.”
Doctor Livingston nodded. “That’s what I saw too. That, plus the fact that I was further away than the officers, and even I saw he was trying to give you a frickin’ cell phone.” Her voice was thick with rage. She paused to take a calming breath. “I assume I just saw an alien, didn’t I?”
“I dunno,” Janet said sourly. “Isn’t that classified?”
“‘Official secrets, six times over,’ or something?” I added.
Dr. Livingston winced. “Touché. But I’m going to have to brief the President. What would you like me to say?”
“Tell him Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane,” Janet said, her tone still harsh.
I closed my eyes again. I seemed to be very, very tired. “No-one believed what I had to say anyway. Tell him what you saw. Maybe he’ll believe that.”
There was a long silence. Mr. Grant, surprisingly, was the one to break it. “I apologize, Professor. And Doctor Livingston. My country wasn’t well-served by my institutional paranoia today.”
“Will wonders never cease?” Janet said.
“I hope not,” I murmured. My head rolled forward.
As I slid back toward oblivion, I heard Janet’s voice, suddenly urgent. “Punch it!!!”
* * * * *
I regained consciousness in what appeared to be a hospital room. At least, I was in a hospital bed, and there was an IV attached to my arm. Janet was beside me. The room was otherwise empty.
“Hey,” I said, my voice still sounding a bit weak. “I hate to keep asking this, but . . . what happened?”
Janet cupped a hand against one of my cheeks. “You fainted, that’s all. Not too surprisin,’ under the circumstances. They brought us to some government facility in DC and got you some more blood or somethin’. That was a couple hours ago.” She pointed to the IV. “That’s just for hydration.”
“Livingston and Grant?”
“She went to see her boss. Grant’s on the other side of the door.”
“So we’re still under arrest?”
Janet waggled her fingers. “It’s a mystery. Livingston asked him to stay ’til she got back. He agreed, even though his boss seemed to want him at that meeting. Said he didn’t want to leave us unguarded.”
“Not sure how to take that,” I said.
“Lyin’ down, I hope,” Janet said. “At least for a bit longer. You had me worried there.”
“Enough to call me James,” I said softly.
“Still your last name, right?”
“Right you are.” I smiled. “Honestly, I think I’m better. And I’d rather sit up. Don’t these things adjust?”
“Uh huh,” Janet said, sounding dubious. “I’m sure they do . . . somehow.”
We spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to make the bed work. We succeeded in demonstrating that our complete lack of technical ability was negatively correlated with our mastery of the fine art of foul language. Between my compendium of foreign and ancient tongues and Janet’s literary and cultural treasures, we had a long playlist.
We failed to notice that the door had opened. “That seems like a whole lot of trash talk for a pretty straightforward task,” said a woman in a nurse’s uniform. “Isn’t one of you supposed to be some kind of a doctor?”
“Yeah,” sighed Janet. “The wrong kind, usually.”
“For anything this easy, they’re all the wrong kind,” the woman asserted as she walked briskly to the bedside. With a few quick motions, the bed began to make happy electronic noises and I was returned to my full, upright and locked position.
“Let’s see how you’re doing,” she said, beginning the process of poking, prodding and taking blood pressure that seems to be universal practice. Judging by her expression, I appeared to be doing much better. “You’re BP’s back within normal parameters,” she confirmed. “Whatever the hell you did this morning – and you’ll notice I’m not asking, ‘cuz that guy by the door with the cold fish eyes is frickin’ scary – I strongly recommend you don’t do it again.”
“Good advice,” agreed Janet. “I second it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said gravely. I noticed that someone had removed my tee shirt, which had been a complete wreck when I’d last seen it. But I was still wearing my sports bra and leggings, and both items were also worse for the wear. I seemed to have gotten blood just about everywhere. “I don’t suppose I could get a change of clothes?”
“Uhhh . . . .” The nurse was thinking aloud. “We have some things, but, ah, your size is a bit . . . unusual?”
“In a good way,” Janet said, reassuringly.
“Oh, of course!” The nurse said. “The best possible way. I’d kill to have your . . . ah . . . trouble fitting into other people’s clothes.”
“Everyone,” I growled. “Literally everyone!”
Just then we heard voices at the door. “Agent Grant? We’re taking them downtown.”
I heard Grant say, “Whose orders?”
“Dr. Tsong and Trevor Agnew.”
I’d heard of Dr. Tsong; if I remembered right, she was the National Security Advisor. The second name meant nothing to me.
“Dr. Livingston intended to come back for them,” Grant temporized.
“Whatever instructions you’ve been given are no longer operative.”
“Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” Janet murmured.
“The District’s not smelling great either.” I looked at the nurse. “I’m good to go?”
She looked uncertain – but not, it appeared, on account of my health. “You can . . . .” She drew out the second word, as if to suggest that it might not be the best idea in the world.
But it didn’t appear that we would have a whole lot of choice. Two beefy men in suits came into the room. I would have a hard time telling them apart. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum. Tweedle Dee said, “We need to take you downtown now. If you’ll come with us?”
“Are we under arrest?” I asked.
“I don’t have anything on that,” he said. “We’re taking you to the White House.”
“Who’s Agnew?”
“The Deputy Defense Secretary. Please . . . I was told this is time-sensitive.”
I saw Grant behind them in the doorway. He shrugged, looking unconvinced.
But a plan was forming in my mind. I put a hand over Janet’s to still the protest I could see forming on her lips, and said, “All right. We’ll come.”
We trooped down a couple flights of stairs and came out into what appeared to be the lobby of a nondescript office building. Interesting in and of itself. There was another black SUV waiting outside the doors. “Does the government buy these things in job lots?” I asked.
They ignored me.
I got in and scooted over to make room for Janet. Grant opened the door on the other side to get in as well.
“Got no orders for you to come,” Tweedle Dee said to Grant.
“I’m staying with them,” he said flatly, daring them to contradict him.
“Suit yourself,” Tweedle Dee said with a shrug. He got into the driver’s seat and Tweedle Dum took shotgun.
We hadn’t been going for more than five minutes when Grant said, “I’m very familiar with the District. This is not the way to get to the White House. It’s not even a way to get to the White House.”
“We have orders, Grant,” Tweedle Dum said from the passenger’s seat. “And your boss’s chop is on them.”
Grant looked . . . dangerous. But all he said was, “Would you be so kind as to loan me a phone then? I need confirmation from the Undersecretary.”
“You’ll see him soon enough,” Tweedle Dum replied.
It looked to me like we were heading out of the District altogether, although I wasn’t nearly as familiar with the area as Grant. We were no longer driving down busy boulevards; instead, we were in a more suburban setting. I was thinking hard about what Worm had said to me – and about the possibilities inherent in tractor beam technology.
I waited until we drove into a park-like area that was surrounded by trees. There were no other cars around – or people either, as near as I could tell, though Tweedle dutifully stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk. Turning my head toward Janet, I murmured, “It would be useful if the car’s wheels no longer touched the ground.”
Janet gave me a funny look. “It’d also be useful if we had wings. Invisibility too. I’ve often wanted that one. Or X-ray vision . . . .” She stopped talking. Abruptly.
We had just started to move again, but the sound – white noise, really – of the tires moving against the roadbed stopped. We continued to glide forward in a straight line, maintaining the low speed we had achieved when the sound ceased.
The road curved. Tweedle Dee attempted to steer, but the car did not respond. We bumped into the curb gently and went backwards at an even slower speed, rotating slowly until we hit the opposite curb. The car came to a stop.
“What’r you doing?” Tweedle Dum asked Tweedle Dee.
“Nothing,” Tweedle Dee replied, puzzled. He revved the engine. It made noise, but we didn’t go anywhere. “It’s like we’re on black ice or something.”
Tweedle Dum shook his head, looking disgusted. “End of July in D.C., and you’re talking about ice? Don’t you supervisors have to pass some sort of test?”
“You know,” Janet said, “Like, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV?’ That kinda test.”
Tweedle Dee growled at his companion, “Laugh it up, fuzzball. Now go check it out!””
Tweedle Dum got out of the car carefully, checked his footing, then went around to the front. He bent down.
“Be a good idea if the human who just left the car weren’t able to touch the ground either,” I said softly.
Tweedle Dum reappeared in front of the car, cursing. He looked a bit taller than usual, and scared. “Jack???” he squeeked.
Tweedle Dee – Jack, I guess, though I wouldn’t be able to tell the two apart in a line-up – poked his head out the window. “What?”
“Jack! Help!!”
“What?” Tweedle Dee repeated, unhelpfully. He turned back, glared at Grant, and said, “Keep them here, you!!!” Without waiting for a response, he got out of the car and headed towards Tweedle Dum.
“I don’t recall seeing you in my chain of command.” Grant’s voice was bland – and certainly inaudible to anyone outside the car.
“One more human just left the car; he should get elevated too.” I said quietly.
Tweedle Dee’s forward motion stopped and he joined Tweedle Dum in cursing.
Janet cocked her head and considered our former captors carefully. “We’re a lot better at cursing.”
“Not very imaginative,” I agreed. “Already repeating the same words? Honestly! They haven’t even hit the thirty-second mark.”
“Kids dees days,” Janet mourned, shaking her head sorrowfully.
Grant looked at me and smiled. “Nicely done, Professor. If I may make a suggestion?”
“Of course,” I replied, warily.
“If you could ask your friends to lower the car, I’ll be happy to drive you wherever you would like to go. Those gentlemen can stay there a few minutes, until we’re clear.”
“We’re supposed to trust you?” Janet’s air of light banter was gone altogether.
“Not at all,” Grant replied. “Your friends will know if I don’t do what you ask, and as you have just demonstrated, they can, ah, correct any deficiencies in my performance.”
“Heh. Good point,” she conceded.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“Excuse me just a moment,” Grant said. He stepped out of the car and went over to where Tweedle Dee was cursing and thrashing, trying to touch the ground that was just out of reach of his feet. His efforts had only succeeded in canting his body at a forty-five degree angle to the ground.
When he saw Grant, he said, “Pull me to the car, quick!”
“As I already informed you – though perhaps your attention was directed elsewhere – I don’t work for you.” Grant’s tone was pleasant, like he was discussing the weather. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“You know who I work for!”
“I wonder if I do?” Grant said thoughtfully. “You kind of skipped the part where you showed some Identification.”
“We’ve got ORDERS!” Tweedle Dee said indignantly, as if the very possibility of questioning orders had never, ever even entered his mind, much less attempted to cross such barren terrain.
“Whatever orders you’ve been given are no longer operative,” Grant said, deadpan.
“You’ll do what he says if you want to live, Dickhead!”
I turned to see that Tweedle Dum had stopped flailing and drawn a weapon while we were watching his doppelgänger. Quickly, no longer afraid to be overheard, I said, “Worm! Raise and lower both suspended humans fifteen feet at random intervals and speeds!”
The Tweedles jerked up a full forty-five feet, then back down, screaming as they went like teenagers on some demented carny ride. Up, down, up, down. Tweedle Dum’s gun discharged once as he was going up, but no-one could hit anything moving around like that.
“Yo-yo, yo-yo man,” Janet sang, sounding pleased.
“‘Worm,” I said. “I think you’re using ‘yards,’ not ‘feet.’”
Janet observed, “You can’t blame them for messing up imperial units – twelve inches to a foot, but three feet to a yard and five and a half yards to a rod? Insane, really. Metric would be so much simpler.”
“Prolly not for aliens,” I said. “Not unless they really have ten digit ‘hands,’ which is the kind of coincidence that only happens in Star Trek.”
But Worm got the message, and the next series of jumps was more restrained, distance-wise at least.
As the boys appeared to be sticking within range of his voice, Grant barked, “Drop the gun, idiot!”
It took a couple more jerks on his invisible chain before Tweedle Dum tossed his weapon over to the grass.
Grant walked over and recovered it. “Careless, leaving something like this just lying around. Bad training.”
“Keep them one foot – foot, Worm! — off the ground!” I said.
They stopped moving.
“What the FUCK! Tweedle Dee said. He was practically weeping. “God, I hate heights!”
Grant bent down, grabbed Tweedle Dee’s ankle and spun him upside down. “The beauty of an essentially frictionless object,” Grant explained, “Is that it’s relatively easy to move it – although stopping, naturally, requires an equal and opposite force.”
“What do you want, you bastard!” Tweedle Dee really appeared to be quite upset.
“All in good time, my pretty,” Grant replied equably. He gave the man a thorough – and very professional – patdown, then started shaking him up and down until items began to fall out of his pockets. Grant reached down and picked up both a phone and a set of keys. A heavy wallet appeared stuck in the billfold pocket of the man’s jacket. Grant relieved him of that too, then gave him a hard shove, sending him on a collision course with Tweedle Dum.
“FUCK!!!” Tweedle Dee shouted.
Grant followed him, making disappointed noises. “You’ve used that one already. Several times. Our guests are already lamenting the sorry state of our educational system.”
When Tweedle Dee hit Tweedle Dum, he said, “Hey, spin me back upright!”
Grant shook his head. “And they are right to lament. Doesn’t anyone take physics anymore?”
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were now both gliding up the road and, thanks to Tweedle Dee’s less-than-brilliant suggestion, turning slow cartwheels, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise. Grant walked a few paces behind, whistling the Blue Danube waltz at a tempo corresponding to their rotations, while picking up items of interest that were falling from Tweedle Dum’s pockets.
Janet said, “Damn. I mighta been a bit hard on the Duke. Dude’s got style!”
“Or possibly just a sick sense of humor,” I replied, watching closely. “Which would certainly account for your change in attitude.”
“I said ‘might,’ Jessica. Jury’s still out.”
“Don’t you need twelve people for a jury?”
“I don’t. Just call me Judge Dredd.”
They went off the road at the turn and into a field of wildflowers. Maybe ten yards in, Grant stopped first one of them, then the other. Like Janet and me, Grant hadn’t had a chance to change since our morning “meeting.” For the second time, he pulled his fanny pack around to the front and played with a dial. He checked the phone he had confiscated from Tweedle Dee and, apparently satisfied, tossed it on the grass. Then he turned and started heading back to the car.
“I will hunt you down, swear to God!” Tweedle Dum screamed at his back.
“And your little dog, too!” Janet said, chuckling.
Grant turned back and looked at the Tweedle Twins. I couldn’t hear what he said. Maybe he didn’t say anything at all. But Tweedle Dum stopped making threats. Indeed, he finally just shut up.
I said to the ether, “Thank you, Ensign. You can lower the car now, but not the two humans.” When I felt the car’s tires take its weight again, I opened the door and went to meet Grant.
“I misjudged you earlier today,” I said quietly. “I apologize for that. And for my angry words.”
He gave me a long look. “I do my duty as I see it, Professor,” he said finally. “Sometimes I get it wrong.”
“Oops?”
He smiled. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Works for me.”
We got in the car. I studiously ignored Janet’s questioning look.
“Where to?” Grant asked.
And that, I thought, was an excellent question. Most excellent indeed.
To be continued. All in good time.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 12: The Enemy Within
To answer Grant’s question – “where to?” – we had to make another decision first.
“Janet,” I said, “I know we had a bad start today. . . .”
Janet interrupted me. “A bad start? No, I wouldn’t say that. Maybe you’d say Henry Ford had a bad start. Bankruptcy and all that. Or Leonardo DiCaprio – I mean, his first movie was ‘Critters 3,’ if you can believe it. Those . . . those were bad starts. What WE had was a Category Five Shitstorm!”
“Well, okay. Sure. . . .”
“So I don’t suppose you’d consider goin’ someplace like Bolivia?”
“Bolivia? No! Janet . . . I’m not ready to give up yet.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Of course not. You’d give lessons in stubborn to mules, cats, and Captain Ahab.”
“But I need to know . . . .”
Again, she cut me off. “Oh, I’m in,” she said. “I’m seriously opposed to doin’ shit that gets either of us shot – or, in your case, shot again – but with that minor caveat, sure. Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m actually good with not getting shot, too.”
“So glad we got that part ironed out,” she said.
I thought for a moment. “We need to find a place to stay. I need a change of clothes, since I can’t be seen like this without attracting sharks or scaring children. And . . . we need to get back in touch with Dr. Livingston. I think she’s our best hope right now.”
Grant sat silent through this exchange. Should I ask his opinion? He had been helpful with the goons, but . . .
At least, I thought, I could trust him to be honest. “Mr. Grant, I appreciate your willingness to help. But you have your own duties, your own allegiances. If you bring us somewhere, won’t you have to tell someone else where that is? I don’t want to put you in a compromising situation.”
He gave me a steady look and a half smile. “Perceptive, Professor. My only allegiance is to my country. Period. This morning, that meant that I was willing to take you into custody at the direction of the Undersecretary. This afternoon, that meant I felt compelled to assist you in escaping people who were attempting to detain you under false pretenses. But I can’t promise that I won’t arrest you later, if I conclude that duty requires it.”
Janet gave an unladylike snort. “Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning?"
“Probably nothing so drastic, Professor,” Grant’s tone was serious, though his eyes displayed a gleam of appreciation. “But I can’t disagree with the general thrust of your analysis.”
“What would you suggest we do, then, Mr. Grant?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “I suggest that you have me drop you at a metro station; the nearest one is at Bethesda. From there, you can go wherever you like. Catch a train to Philadelphia, or a flight to Bolivia. Or, find a hotel, a place to buy clothes, new burner phones . . . just about whatever you want. And, if you need to reach me again, I’ll have my normal cell phone with me within an hour of leaving you.”
He thought for a moment longer. “Ah . . . I think you are right about the Science Adviser. For whatever my opinion on that subject may be worth.”
So we took off for the metro. After a couple minutes, I suggested that our former captors should probably be released from the aliens’ tractor beam. I had no way to know whether they actually were. I couldn’t bring myself to be too concerned about it.
Just before we arrived at the station, the skies opened up and it began to pour – a very typical event in the D.C. area in the summertime. “The day just keeps getting better,” I sighed.
“No, it’s perfect!” Janet said, looking pleased. When we arrived, she looked around and spotted what she was looking for. “Gimme two minutes,” she said, jumping out and dashing to a kiosk by the entrance to the metro.
When she returned, she handed me a disposable poncho and donned one herself. “That’ll hide a multitude of sins,” she said. “Which is good, since you seem to be a walkin’ advertisement for the sacrament of confession. She cocked her head and gave me a critical look. “Even if it’s not the most stylish thing you’ve ever worn.”
“Gee, thanks!” I said in response. Then I touched Grant’s arm. “Thank you. For the ride and the advice. But mostly for being honest.”
He smiled. “Good luck . . . Jessica.”
I squeezed his arm, put up the hood of my poncho, and hopped out of the car. Janet and I raced to the Metro through the downpour and started down the escalator.
Janet was a step behind and above me. She leaned down and sang into my ear, “If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with!”
“Janet!!! It’s not like that – at all!”
“Really?”
“Really! Honestly, I don’t know where you get your ideas.”
“Well . . . you may not intend to be flirtin’, but it’s possible – bear with me here – that guys may not see it the same way.”
“I . . . ah . . . what? Flirting?”
“It’s pretty amazing, really,” Janet responded. “Even objectively unattractive men – which our friend the Duke most definitely isn’t – often think a woman who is just being kind, or polite, or whatever, must really be signaling attraction.”
“You mean . . . “
“Yeah. As in, ‘drag him off to bed, jump his bones, shag him ragged and bear his children’ kind of attraction.”
“Horsefeathers! I have no recollection of thinking that way even once during the sixty-plus years I roamed the earth as a male!”
“Horsefeathers? Seriously? You know how ridiculous that sounds, comin’ from a seventeen-year-old girl? They’ll lock you up!” She shook her head. “Jessica, honey, I hate to break it to you, but James Wainwright was not a typical man. In too many ways to even begin to count.”
But I wasn’t focused on that. Grant? Really? “You don’t think . . . ?”
“Of course I think,” she laughed. “I’m a full professor. It’s what we do.”
We got to the bottom of the escalator and went to buy tickets. “Any idea where we should go?” Janet asked.
I looked at the schematic of the Metro system. Bethesda’s station was on the Red Line, and I looked down the names of the other stations on that line. “I’ve at least heard of Dupont Circle,” I said with a distinct lack of confidence. “I think it’s a big commercial area, right? We should be able to find places to shop and to stay.”
Janet was carrying the purse, so she got us tickets and we made our way to the platform.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
I thought a minute. “Burner phones, then a quiet place to make calls. Preferably a hotel, but we can’t waste time. We need to find out what Livingston’s doing.”
The train was busy and the car was full. We were in a crush by the door, but I didn’t want to wait for another train. After the events of the past few hours, I felt very vulnerable. Who were all these people? Were any of them working for . . . well, whoever Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were working for? How would I know? The space between my shoulder blades itched, just thinking about it.
As the train braked for the next station, I was thrown slightly off balance. I felt hands steady me . . . and then linger. And start to wander.
“You okay, babe?” asked a fruity voice behind me. His hands didn’t release me.
I snapped. In a loud and confrontational voice, I said, “If you don’t get those hands off me RIGHT NOW, you’re going to be picking your goddamned nose with your elbow!”
“Hey, hey, just trying to be helpful!” the voice said, sounding both offended and defensive. But the hands let go. Fast.
“Perv,” snarled Janet. “Pick on someone your own age – or at least, your own species! Yech!”
The fruity voice squeaked “Owww!”
“Oh, sorry,” said a rough, deep voice.
I managed to turn around enough to see an enormous man with a cold smile looking at a middle aged guy with a pot belly who was rubbing his head.
“I didn’t see you way down there,” the big man softly. “I hope I didn’t make you miss your stop here.”
“It’s not my . . . .“ The shorter man stopped talking, as the big man’s facial expression registered. Then he said, very quickly, “Thanks for reminding me,” and scurried out just as the doors opened.
Janet gave a derisive snort.
The big man looked at me, and his expression cleared. “Ma’am,” he said, with a nod.
I nodded back. “Thank you.” But I turned back around, purposefully limiting contact. I was happy that the horrid little man had gotten a scare, but I didn’t know who the big guy was. I wasn’t feeling very trusting. Besides . . . I was still processing Janet’s admonition about inadvertent flirting. Not for the first time, I thought, girl stuff is hard.
He got off at Tenleytown, which made me feel safer, though worse about not trusting him. Janet leaned in close to say, “He is the Brute Squad!”
We got off four stops later, fortunately without further incident.
The escalator at Dupont Circle was the longest I’d ever seen. Coupled with the eerie light and rain coming from the distant top of the massive shaft, I felt like I was being taken up to heaven. But unlike Iowa, no one would ever mistake D.C. for heaven. Ever. Especially not at the end of July. The whole damned city felt like a giant sweat gland.
“Good work back there, Jessica,” Janet said as we took the long ride.
“Really? I just blew up.”
“Bein’ a girl doesn’t mean you need to be a victim,” she responded. “There’s no reason not to call bullshit on that kind of behavior, loudly and in public. Throwin’ a bit of style into the mix – I liked the nose-pickin' line, by the way – well, that’s just addin’ bacon to a burger.”
When we finally finished our ascent from the underworld, we found that we had practically been delivered to an AT&T store. We went in and Janet got a couple phones and SIM cards. Finding a place to actually use them was more difficult. In the end, we decided that the best we could do was the middle of the traffic circle itself, keeping the hoods of our ponchos up. It was still raining, though fortunately it was no longer a suffocating deluge.
The first thing I did was to call Janet’s new phone. When she answered, I said, “Worm, I assume you are monitoring. Please call one of these two numbers when we hang up, hiding the location from which your call originated.”
Half a minute later, I received a call from “Bismarck, North Dakota.” “Good afternoon, Ensign,” I said. “Thank you for your assistance this morning – and this afternoon.”
“Shucks, Ma’am, ‘twern’t nothin’,” Worm replied in his animated voice. Losing affect like a punctured dirigible loses altitude, he continued, “We appreciate willingness your to continue.”
“It may not look like it, but I still think we made progress this morning. I need to make some calls, but I can’t have them traced. Can you make the connection, making it appear that my calls originate from different locations?”
“Affirmative, Jessica James.”
“Can you get a number for Doctor Averil Livingston, the President’s Science Advisor?”
After a moment, Worm said, “We have a number for the Office of the Science Advisor.”
“That’ll do,” I said. “Put me through . . . and have the call appear to originate from the Office of the Undersecretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security.”
Worm did not respond, but I could hear ringing, followed by a young woman’s voice. “Office of the Science Advisor, Kara McDaniels speaking.”
“Good afternoon,” I replied. “This is Jessica James; I spoke with Doctor Livingston this morning. Is she available?”
“Doctor Livingston isn’t in the office today. Can I take a message, or send you to voicemail?”
I hadn’t expected that. Janet and I shared a puzzled look, and I said, “Is there a way that I can reach her? It’s urgent.”
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave a message.”
“Was she supposed to be in the office today?”
“We don’t give out that information,” the woman huffed. “You can leave a message, or call back another time.”
I opted for the latter, then called Worm back. “No luck there, Ensign. Any other numbers associated with Doctor Livingston?”
“I have a number associated with A. Livingston in something called ‘McLean, Virginia.’”
“Let’s try it. Have the call originate from the Science Advisor’s Office.”
It was a long shot, but – much to my surprise – a male voice answered. “Hello?”
“Good afternoon. I was wondering whether Doctor Livingston was home today. She’s not in the office.”
“She was going there as far as I know, though she had an early meeting she had to go to first. Try her cell.”
I couldn’t very well admit that I didn’t know her mobile number – not if I was calling from her office. I thanked him and rang off.
“Worm,” I said, calling him back again, “Do you have any other numbers associated with Doctor Livingston?”
“Negative.”
“Really?” I was frustrated and more than a bit concerned. “How is that possible? We know she has a cell phone.”
“Why don’t you try using two Dixie cups with a string?” Worm asked.
“What? Not helpful, Worm!” I said, surprised.
“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”
Based on his animated tone, as well as the barely relevant and not terribly helpful substance of his remarks, I assumed Worm was quoting something, though it sounded far too accurate to be from an advertisement.
Janet, at least, was amused. Very amused.
I told Worm we needed to give some thought to our next steps and ended the call.
“We need to get out of sight and out of the rain,” I said. “There’s bound to be a hotel near here.” But we were unable to discern one from where we were.
“There was a bookstore across from the phone place,” Janet said. “Looked legit, too. Someone there might know.”
“I’m supposed to let you into a legitimate bookstore? We don’t have all week!”
“Really, Jessica!” She gave my arm a pat. “I don’t know where you get your ideas!”
“Long and careful observation.”
She laughed, but despite my misgivings, we went to the bookstore and Janet was able to find someone – after three tries – who knew the area well enough to tell us where we might find a hotel. I even managed to get Janet out of the place without resorting to force or violence. I couldn’t blame her, really – it is a good bookstore. They even had a copy of . . . well. Never mind.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, we were ensconced in a hotel room. Janet had, by some alchemy, gotten the manager to buy the story that she had lost her credit card, so we paid cash and her card wasn’t run. I was eager for a shower, but I decided to let Janet take the first one. We were both soaked anyhow.
I had an ulterior motive for my magnanimity, and for once Janet didn’t pick up on it. Once she was in the shower, I called Worm. “Can you connect me to Professor Gavin Grimm? I believe Janet called him from her cell phone, and she had a direct number.”
“I record have,” Worm replied. “Where from should the call come?”
“Professor Seldon’s cell phone.” I wasn’t certain he would answer, but I figured a guilty conscience might help.
He picked up immediately. “Janet, I’ve only got a minute. I don”t have an update for you.”
“This is Jessica James,” I said coolly. “We’ve already gotten the essence of your report from Dr. Livingston and Dr. Singh.”
“What? That’s . . . I mean . . . .” His sputtering petered out.
“Professor, I don’t have time for this right now. We met with Livingston and Singh this morning. After the meeting, Dr. Livingston intended to brief the President. But we have some concern that she might have been intercepted. And detained.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know. But she may be in danger. Do you have her cell phone number?”
“Of course; she’s the co-chair of the SAB. But I’m not giving it out!”
“Fine. Don’t. But could you please call her? Make sure she’s all right? We would like to speak with her, so if you would give her Janet’s cell phone I’d appreciate it.”
He hesitated, uncertain. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes. I’m very worried.”
“Alright. I’ll call her.” He hung up.
“Worm,” I said, “Please track the names, numbers and locations of the people Professor Grimm calls.”
A few minutes passed. Janet was still in the bathroom, but out of the shower, when my phone rang. The caller ID – “Antananarivo” – made me smile. “What have you got, Ensign?”
“Professor Grimm a device called located physically in car parked near where you shot were.”
His word order was more tangled than usual, but I got it after a couple seconds. “A cell phone,” I surmised. “No answer, I assume?”
“Correct,” Worm said. “Professor Grim then the McLean number and Science Advisor’s Office called. Finally, Dr. Singh called. Ongoing.”
“Grimm called Singh?
“That is what said me.”
It wasn’t exactly, but it also wasn’t the best time for a grammar lesson. While I was considering the substance of what Worm had said, Janet came out of the bathroom toweling her hair. Seeing me on the phone, she raised an eyebrow in question.
“Worm,” I mouthed to her.
“Put him on speaker, would you?” Janet asked. When I did, she said, “Ensign, do you have a record of the vehicle that took us from where Jessica was shot to where she got medical treatment?”
“We identify the ‘vehicle’ can, Professor Seldon.”
“Do you have any way to locate it now?” Janet asked.
After a moment, Worm said, “Apologies. The area too large is.”
By this time, I’d figured out my next avenue of inquiry. “Did Grimm call Singh’s office number?”
“Wait . . . what does Grimm have to do with this?” Janet asked.
“In a minute,” I said. “Worm?”
“Negative,” Worm replied. “Was ‘cell phone,’ think me. Dr. Singh used this device in car he drove after you shot were.”
“Excellent! Where was Dr. Singh when Grimm called him?”
“In building,” Worm replied.
“Umm . . . where is the building located?”
“The State of Maryland, also identified as the ‘Old Line State,’ the ‘Free State,’ and the ‘Chesapeake Bay State.’”
“Old Lyme? Really? Thought that was in Connecticut,” said Janet.
“I you assure,” Worm began.
I cut him off. “Worm, Maryland is a big place . . . .”
“Affirmative. 12,407 square miles,” he agreed.
Worm’s view of relevance, like Janet's, can sometimes stray beyond the strictly practical. “Do you have location information within the Chesapeake Bay State?” I asked.
“The building on maps identified is, ‘Chevy Chase Office Park.”
“Hallelujah,” I muttered.
Janet interjected, “Worm, is the vehicle we were discussing near the ‘Chevy Chase Office Park?’”
Thirty seconds later, Worm said, “Affirmative, Dr. Seldon.”
“Hallelujah!” she echoed.
Worm said, “Professor Grimm ended call with Dr. Singh has and attempt to call Dr. Seldon’s ‘cell phone’ is. Connect should?”
“Yes!” I said, overriding Janet’s “huh?”
“Hello?” I said.
“Miss James?” It was Grimm.
“Speaking.”
“I . . . was not able to reach the Science Adviser.”
I waited, then, finally, said, “Did you learn anything, Professor? Dr. Livingston may be in danger.”
“You . . . I’m sorry. I can’t . . . you don’t . . . .” Grimm sounded at once worried, conflicted and apologetic.
Janet looked furious and drew a breath to speak.
I put a hand on her arm, got her attention, and shook my head. “Professor Grimm,” I said softly, “You know Dr. Livingston. You’ve worked with her. I believe she was prevented from making a report to the President concerning the technology you evaluated. What’s the right thing to do here?”
More silence. Finally, Grimm said, “Fuck it. This doesn’t smell right. But . . . I’m not sure where to go with it. You said she was going to brief the President?”
“That’s where she said she was going when she left us.”
“She couldn’t just show up unannounced. Luther Corbin would have cleared it.” He was thinking out loud.
“Corbin being?”
“The President’s Chief of Staff. I’ll call him, but . . . I don’t have much to go on.”
“And we don’t have much time. So . . . I’ll tell you what I know, and I’ll have to trust you with what you do with it. Dr. Seldon and I met informally with Dr. Livingston and Undersecretary Singh. At the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Livingston appeared to be convinced that the President should be informed about the, ah, offer we were authorized to make. She took Dr. Seldon and me to a government facility and said she would come back for us after meeting with the President. Dr. Singh did not accompany us.
“Agents claiming to be working for three highly-placed officials came to collect us and falsely claimed they were taking us to the White House. We managed to escape not far from Bethesda. We have reason to believe that Dr. Singh intercepted Dr. Livingston and took her to a facility located at the Chevy Chase Office Park. We surmise we were being taken to the same place.”
“That’s bat-shit crazy. You know that.” Grimm sounded worried.
“You thought the same about our tech,” I reminded him.
“I know, I know! But . . . Why would anyone try to keep Averil from reporting to the President?” Before I could answer, he said, “Which officials are you talking about, anyway?”
“The goons identified three people; I don’t know whether they were being truthful.”
“Names, Miss James!” He was clearly impatient with my temporizing.
“Singh. Agnew. Tsong.”
“. . . unto the Lord?” asked Janet. “Yeah, not so much.”
“Janet? You’re there too?”
“Yeah, Gavin; Jessica’s tryin’ to keep me from talkin’ ’cuz she figures I’ll blow up at you or somethin.’”
“Wherever could I have gotten that idea?” I asked.
“It has been known to happen,” Grimm said, before adding, “but in fairness, I do sometimes give her cause. . . . Listen, I know Singh and this doesn’t seem like him. At all. And I can’t imagine why Defense and NSC would even be involved. At any level, much less the most senior.”
“Ah.” I knew this would need to be finessed somehow. “It likely has to do with the identity of the tech’s owners and the deal they are proposing.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Grimm asked.
I was about to answer when Janet forestalled me. “I’m sorry, Gavin. Dr. Livingston herself told us that was classified – ‘official secrets six times over,’ she said. We have to respect that – for the same sorts of reasons, I imagine, that you felt compelled to bring our data to the government’s notice without tellin’ us.” Amazingly, she managed the entire speech in a tone of regret that gave no plausible cause for offense.
Grimm may have wanted to take umbrage anyway – I expect he did, really – but he succeeded in restraining himself as well. Janet’s point was, after all, a valid one. “I . . . see,” he finally said. “But I certainly don’t want to stick my nose into this if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Professor,” I said, “can you think of any circumstance that would justify some bureaucrats detaining the President’s Science Advisor to keep her from making a report?”
“I can’t – but that might just be a failure of imagination on my part.”
“You, Gav? Unimaginative? Whodathunk?”
I looked at Janet and shook my head. “It’s like Grant said. Institutional paranoia, pure and simple.”
“Grant? Earl Grant?” asked Grimm.
“Dukkov Earl Grant,” Janet confirmed. “Works for your buddy Singh.”
“I wouldn’t say Singh is my ‘buddy.’ I’ve just worked with him. And I’ve met Grant. He’s solid.” Grimm sounded thoughtful. “Can he corroborate what you’ve told me?”
I said, “He can’t corroborate our information about where Livingston and Singh are – at least I don’t think he can. But he was with us up to the point that we escaped from the goons. He can corroborate the rest.”
“Ask him, Gavin,” Janet said, her voice dead serious.
Surprisingly, Grimm said, “I trust you, Janet, since you’d have to assume I’d check. I’ll call Corbin.”
I said, “Thank you. Will you let us know what he says?”
“Unless he tells me not to, Miss James. But he might.”
“Understood. Good luck.”
We signed off and I said, “Worm, please continue to monitor Professor Grim’s communications. The people he calls, what number, where they are.”
Janet was giving me a very old school glower. “Thought I didn’t need to know you were talkin’ to that snake Grimm, huh?”
“We’re running out of options, Janet, and I know you’re . . . ah . . . incensed wherever he is concerned.”
“You meant to say, ‘irrational,’ didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Only ’cuz you don’t want to get hurt,” Janet observed.
“There is that, I suppose.”
“Look, Hon, I know I sound irrational. I think I’ve got good reasons to have a bad opinion. But . . . I know our options are limited. Have a bit of faith, okay?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said contritely.
“Right. I’m gonna get us both a change of clothes. We passed a store getting here, so I’ll be quick and I’ll take the other phone with me in case you need to get me. Now take your phone into the bathroom and grab a quick shower.”
I nodded; it seemed very unlikely I’d hear back from anyone for a couple of minutes. In the bathroom, I practically peeled myself out of the clothes I’d worn all day and stepped into the shower. It took me considerably longer than I’d hoped to get rid of all the blood – especially the blood that had gotten into my long hair.
When I got out, I put on one of the hotel’s terry cloth robes, muttering darkly about the rank dishonesty of a “one size fits all” label. I wrapped my head in a towel and called Worm. “Can you tell me whether Professor Grimm’s been making any calls?”
“Called number listed for Office of Chief of Staff, then number for Dukkov Earl Grant. Ongoing.” Worm’s level voices gave a simulacrum of calm. It was probably just a coincidence.
“How long was the call to the Chief of Staff’s office?”
“47 seconds,” Worm replied.
That almost certainly meant he had left a message. Damn!
I was running out of ideas. I needed inspiration, but I had an idea where I might get some.
“Worm,” I said. “Connect me to Justin Abel, please.”
I heard ringing, followed by a deep, and deeply reassuring, voice. “Justin Abel.”
“Justin, it’s Jessica. Help!”
* * * * * *
There were just two entrances to the Chevy Chase Office Park. An hour and a half after I had spoken to Justin, I was watching one of them and Janet was watching another. Justin, bless him, had thought of a plan that did not require action by distracted and/or conflicted federal officials.
“Jessica,” he’d said, “Do what any good citizen would do. Call the cops.”
But not, of course, without getting good intelligence. So we knew that Singh, at least, was still in the building – or at least his cell phone was. We knew that at least three other people were with him, since their cell phones were active. And we knew that their government-issued cars were behind the building, near the exit that I was watching from a small park across the street.
It was full dark and the back door area was poorly lit – at least to the visible spectrum. But Worm’s sensors could “see” a lot better than I could.
I called Janet. “Ready?”
“Let’s kick the tires and light the fires!” she responded, with typical Seldon enthusiasm. Janet loved a little mischief and mayhem.
Showtime! “Worm, make the first call.”
“Police dispatch, how may I direct your call?”
“Dr. Livingston’s been kidnapped! We’ve located her car at the Chevy Chase Office Park. She may still be there!” I knew that the call would appear to be originating from Dr. Livingston’s office.
“Slow down, Ma’am,” said the dispatcher. “What’s your name?”
“My name’s Jessica James. I’m working with Dr. Livingston. She was kidnapped earlier today – carjacking, we think. But she doesn’t have her phone with her. We found the car she was driving and . . . Oh, please, hurry!” Okay, I was laying the “damsel in distress” vibe on a little thick, but we needed a little less talk and a lot more action.
It worked. “We’ll send officers to investigate right away. Can we reach you at this number?”
“Yes, I’ll be right here! Thank you, thank you!” Of course, if they dialed the Science Advisor’s Office, Worm would divert the call to me. That might not be legal – I suspected that it wasn’t – but they hadn’t asked and I decided that my speculation on the subject was at best uninformed. I’m a linguist, not a lawyer, I told myself. Quite firmly. Besides, the issue might never arise.
A few minutes passed and I was becoming increasingly anxious. But then I heard the sound I was waiting for – a siren. “Second call, Worm!”
The phone began ringing again. “This is Singh,” the Undersecretary said as he answered his cell phone. His caller ID should be indicating that the call originated in the National Security Advisor’s office.
I plugged my nose to disguise my voice. “Dr. Tsong directed me to tell you that your location has been discovered and that police are on their way right now. She’s been summoned to meet with the Chief of Staff.” I hung up before Singh could respond – or ask questions – then waited a bit longer.
I’d taken some convincing on this part, but Justin had been adamant. “Of course he'll be suspicious. It doesn't matter. He won’t have time to confirm it, and he’ll have to respect the threat.”
The sirens were clearly getting closer.
The back door opened and someone came out – just one person. I couldn’t tell the features, but – obviously male, and clearly alone. He walked around, looking left and right, then got into one of the cars and turned the ignition.
“Get ready, Worm,” I murmured.
Three people came out the door. One on his own, another “escorting” the third. “If you confirm the identity, Worm, execute!”
Suddenly all three figures appeared to stumble. Then the figure who had been ‘escorted’ shot into the sky almost too fast to see in the dim light. The other two figures regained their feet, looked around wildly, and began running around. I could hear them shouting, though I couldn’t make out everything they were saying. Short, blunt, very Anglo Saxon words seemed to predominate.
The sound of the sirens was very loud now.
I braced myself for what I knew was coming . . . and I shot into the sky myself. I had never moved so fast, or imagined that I even could. Wind was screaming past my hair and face, my eyes were watering, and I was very glad that Janet had gotten me a pair of pants – dressy, very fashionable pants, but pants nonetheless – rather than a skirt. In no time at all, I could see almost all of the greater Washington Metropolitan area.
I caught up with Dr. Livingston in mid-air; I assumed our proximity meant that we were close to the ship. Her eyes were screwed tight, and she was clenching her teeth to avoid screaming. We both slowed and matched speed.
It was now possible to hear something other than the sound of rushing air. “Doctor Livingston,” I said, loud enough for her to hear me.
Her eyes remained closed.
“Doctor, it’s okay. You’re safe.” I reached out with both hands and clasped her shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Her eyes opened a slit. Looked at me. “You’ve got me?” Then she looked down. “Who’s got you?”
“They call themselves The People – at least, that’s the translation,” I answered.
Our view of the city disappeared – probably just in time to preserve the Science Advisor’s composure. Light came on. We were back in the hold of the aliens’ ship. Worm, still in his pinstripes and flip-flops, was waiting for us.
Dr. Livingston’s eyes fell on our host. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
“You talkin’ to me?” Worm asked, animated.
“Not exactly,” I said quickly. “Doctor Livingston, this is Ensign Worm; I guess you would say he’s the liaison officer. Ensign Worm, this is Dr. Averil Livingston, the President’s Science Advisor.”
Livingston was still looking shell-shocked. I decided this might not be the best opportunity for interspecies communications. “Worm, may we have a moment please? Also – could you connect me to Dr. Seldon?”
“Yes, Jessica James. Moment.” He departed through the side door.
I got out my phone and waited until it connected. “Janet, I’ve got Dr. Livingston safe. What’s going on down there?”
Janet said, “Singh met the police at the door and had a discussion with ’em. A rather lengthy discussion. Then they all went inside. I assume that was just delayin’ things.”
“Great,” I said. “I need to talk to Dr. Livingston and determine where we should be dropped off. Meantime, why don’t you head back to the city? I should be back in touch in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Okay, Jessica – You both okay?”
“I guess so,” I answered. “A bit shook up though.”
“Damn, girl, you're much too tense. You're young. You need to relax, learn to take some joy in your work.”
I could hear the relieved smile in Janet’s voice, and found myself smiling in return. “I’ll try.”
“Good! Now get goin.’ And hey! Let’s be careful out there!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Dr. Livingston was listening to the exchange, which I’d deliberately had on speaker. As I had hoped, it seemed to calm her down somewhat. After I’d ended the call, she said, “You meant what you said? They’re going to let us go?”
“Absolutely. They picked you up at my request. I thought Dr. Singh had detained you. If I was wrong, I apologize.”
“You . . . weren’t wrong. He was convinced that the . . . ah, aliens . . . posed a threat. He was afraid that I’d be able to convince the President that they aren’t . . . .”
“But . . . it’s the President’s call, isn’t it?” I asked, probably naively.
“Of course it is. But . . . well. There are folks who don’t necessarily trust him to make the right call.”
That seemed a bit presumptuous of them. “Okay. Well, the aliens would like to make a trade, as I said this morning. They want you to be able to talk to the President. I assume you would still like to?”
That seemed to put some starch back into her. “Hell, yes!”
“So, how can we make sure that you get that chance?” I asked.
She thought for a moment. “I guess I shouldn’t go back home, or to my office . . . . But I need to go somewhere I can make some calls. I need to call . . . .” she was thinking furiously. “Luther Corbin.”
“Professor Grimm has been trying to reach him for a couple of hours. No luck, I’m afraid.”
Worm's voice came through some sort of sound system. “Jessica James, I update have for you.”
I looked at Livingston.
She took a breath and nodded.
“Please come in, Ensign,” I responded.
He rejoined us. “Professor Grimm received call from Office, Chief of Staff. Ongoing. Also: Person carrying Dr. Singh cell phone left Chevy Chase Office Park with three other persons.”
“That should get Mr. Corbin up to speed – at least some.” I asked Dr. Livingston, “Do you have any idea where Singh might be headed?”
She shook her head. “I know he’s been in contact with Dr. Tsong and with Agnew over at the Pentagon off and on all day. Maybe he’s going to meet with them.”
“Will he ‘Get out of Dodge?’” Worm asked, carefully.
Again, she shook her head. “No. He can’t run. Probably wouldn’t if he could. He’ll fight.”
“Like Oh Kay Corral?” Worm’s unexpressive face nonetheless appeared to register distaste.
“No,” Livingston replied firmly. “He’ll have to try to convince the boss – my boss and his, ultimately – that what he did was justified. Or at least, that he thought he was acting in the country’s best interests.”
Worm studied her impassively, then looked back at me. “Jessica James. Your species, I doubt. Your ‘di-ver-si-ty.’ Elder must speak.” He turned abruptly and left the chamber.
Livingston looked worried. Very worried. “What did I say? What’s going on?”
“Dr. Livingston,” I said, “It’s complicated. I am convinced – completely – that The People mean no harm. But you need to understand that they aren't human. They think, reason, and communicate very differently than we do. They . . . .”
I stopped speaking when the door opened again. Worm entered, followed by the entity I had come to think of as the leader of the expedition, dressed as usual in the form and outfit of a character from Star Trek.
“Elder Mission Leader,” I said.
As before, the Elder chittered, and his voice was translated. The voice, as before, was Siri’s. “Jessica James. Doctor Livingston.”
“You’re the leader?” Livingston looked skeptical. Like Worm’s flip flops, the made-for-TV uniform didn’t exactly inspire confidence; it had been campy even back in 1968.
Siri translated the Elder's next batch of chittering, and evidently, he did not feel like answering questions. “Your people love chaos. Disorder. Even a simple trade offer creates disunity. It is distasteful. Very distasteful. Go talk to your Secretaries and Undersecretaries. Talk to your President.”
Worm added, “And his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.”
Livingston looked at me, baffled.
The leader chittered some more, and Siri’s voice resumed. “Talk to whoever you want. But understand this, Doctor Livingston. We will only deal with Jessica James.”
“But . . . Elder,” I tried to say.
“Jessica James does not represent the United States government,” Livingston pointed out.
The Elder chittered. “This is not a matter for discussion,” Siri’s cool voice translated. “We can’t deal with chaos. We can deal with Jessica James.”
“But why?” Livingston was bewildered.
Truth was, so was I.
The Elder chittered again. “We do not know whether we can work with your species. You make many many rules but do not follow them. You make solemn agreements and break them. No one language. No one culture. No single loyalty. You try to keep secrets from your swarm leader. But we have found one of you we can trust. So if you want to deal, you can talk to Jessica James. She has . . . . “
Siri’s voice stopped, then said, “I’m sorry, Captain, I didn’t get that.”
“Huge tracts of land?” Worm tried.
“Worm!!!” I growled.
“No, not correct,” Worm said. “Tracts are too large.”
I stamped my foot. Honestly, I did. "Worm!"
He ignored me and chittered at the Elder, who chittered back at length.
Finally Worm turned back to us. “Your language no equivalent has. Not sure your species has. But closest this is. Elder says, ‘Jessica James has honor.’”
The chamber was quiet.
Dr. Livingston finally broke the silence. “I don’t doubt that she does,” she said, sounding very diplomatic. “But . . . .”
Worm interrupted her. “Dr. Livingston. That’s the way it is.”
They both turned and left the chamber.
Livingston looked at me, puzzled and distressed. “What the hell just happened here?”
“Beats me,” I said, though I was starting to have an idea or two. “Let’s get you somewhere you can make calls.”
“I’ll need my phone,” she said.
“I’ll loan you one,” I assured her. “And it can’t be traced.”
That earned me a funny look. “Fine then. Have them set us down . . . in the middle of Grant Circle, so long as no-one’s there. Pretty quick walk to the Metro, but almost always deserted.”
We made those arrangements with Worm, then let Janet know where to meet us. “Better make it a fast drop, Worm,” I said, fearing inadvertent discovery. “Just catch us before we hit the dirt, okay?”
I thought Dr. Livingston would be as fearful on the way down as she had been on the way up, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Now that she knew what was going on, she positively exulted in the free fall. “Yippee Kai-Aye!” she shouted, and laughed as we plummeted to earth.
I wanted to die, and thought I was just about to get my wish.
But the tractor beam broke our fall just in time, and we landed lightly on our feet in the middle of a small, poorly-lit park.
“Damn,” said Livingston, a fierce grin on her face. “That was a rush!”
“I’m surrounded by lunatics,” I said. “Deranged, cracked, loco, kooky, certifiably crazy people. The People are the only ones who make any sense, and they sound like the Marx Brothers. But hey, don’t mind me. Make your phone calls. I’ll just sit here and scream. Quietly, of course, so I don’t disturb the neighbors.”
We found a bench and sat down. The area was busier than I expected based on Livingston’s description; traffic wasn’t heavy, but six streets connected to the circle. Mercifully, no-one was in the park itself. We sat facing the two dark churches that dominated one quadrant – one Catholic, one Methodist, both empty. Not the best argument for diversity, I thought sourly. Though, to be fair, it was late, and a weeknight.
Turning my attention to the task at hand, I said, “How are you going to reach Corbin? It seems like he’s hard to get a hold of.”
To my surprise, she smiled. “Gavin would have to go through Luther’s office, and they’re well trained to understand that everyone who wants to talk to Luther thinks they’re dealing with an emergency, and almost all of them are wrong. But I know the number for his bat phone.”
“Is that a ‘know’ kind of ‘know,’ or is it a, ‘I saved the number on my phone’ kind of know?”
She chuckled. “That’s a very good question, but in this case I actually do know the number. Up here, I mean.” She tapped her head. “So, if you’ll be so kind as to lend me your phone?”
I handed it to her, and said, “Worm, have the call Dr. Livingston makes appear to originate from . . . .” I looked a question at Doctor Livingston.
“He can hear us?” she asked, startled.
I nodded.
“Oh!” She thought for a moment, then finally shook her head, resigned. “Have the call come from my cell phone, I guess.”
Once again, I heard only half of the conversation.
“Yes, it’s me. . . . He did? . . . I’m afraid that’s true, Luther. . . . Yes, I can confirm that too. He spoke with Doctor Tsong several times, and with Deputy Secretary Agnew at least twice. . . . Yes, they were. . . . Well . . . . I don’t want to discuss that over an open line. Any line, really. . . . Yes, I know. But this part’s a lot more serious. . . . A lot, a lot! . . . . Yes, of course. . . . Yes, Jessica James is with me right now. We’re expecting Professor Seldon shortly. . . . . Of course we can. . . . Yes, sir. . . . Yes. . . . I’m sure that Grant will come too. . . . I will ask James and Seldon. . . . No, sir, I don’t think that would be a good idea. At all. But I think they’ll want to. Yes, sir. I’ll see you in an hour.”
Livingston ended the call and stared at the phone for a minute.
“Well?” I asked.
“Corbin’s going to meet with us – all of us – in the EEOB at 11:30.”
“All of us?”
“Yes. Me, Grant, you and Doctor Seldon if you’re willing. . . ." She took a breath and looked down. "And Sing, Tsong and Agnew.” She looked – and sounded – surprisingly fragile.
“Doctor Livingston?”
She didn’t respond.
“Doctor? . . . Averil? Are you all right?”
She looked at me then, and her eyes were shadowed. “Yes, I think so. I’ve . . . .” She stopped, shook her head, and said, “I’m sorry, I was about to say I’ve had a bad day. But you were shot, for God’s sake. If you can keep going, I guess I can too.”
I’d been running on pure adrenaline all day, I realized. I closed my eyes for a moment. Tasted the tired in my bones. And the fear. I didn’t want to see those people again, did I?
“Doctor,” I asked, my eyes still shut, “This battery technology. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s important?”
I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Oh, yes, Jessica. Never doubt that for an instant.”
I sat a moment longer with my eyes closed. Something my dad used to say, decades and decades ago, bubbled up into the forefront of my brain. Funny; I hadn’t thought about Dad in forever. The tough old marine – I wonder what he would have thought if he’d known his son would be filling out a double-D underwire bra? I bet he'd have an opinion.
I smiled at the memory, opened my eyes and pulled myself to my feet. Looking across at the dark churches, I said, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
. . . To be continued. Indefatigably.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 13: The Arena
“Rococo and a bottle of rum!” Janet sounded at once bemused and appalled as she got her first look at the massive, ornate granite pile that is currently designated the “Eisenhower Executive Office Building.” “What is that thing?”
“Mark Twain called it the ugliest building in America,” Dr. Livingston replied.
I snorted. “Then it’s a good thing he didn’t live to see the FBI Building.”
“Or Kallmann Hall,” Janet added. Kallmann was, by a very wide margin, the ugliest building on the Gryphon College campus. Naturally, it housed the school of architecture.
Dr. Livingston smiled. “I’m lucky. I don’t have to look at the outside very much, since my office is on the inside.”
“Seems like an extreme solution to an aesthetic problem,” Janet commented. “Just let the ugly monster eat you!”
“It grows on you,” the Science Advisor assured us.
“So do warts,” I observed.
“What America needs,” Janet intoned sententiously, “is Preparation H.”
“And fast,” I said fervently, as we walked up to the night entrance.
“Good evening, Chester,” Dr. Livingston said to the very alert looking security guard at the desk.
“Doctor.” He gave her a respectful nod, but at least half his attention stayed on Janet and me – newcomers he did not know by sight. “Are the visitors with you?”
“They are,” Livingston replied. “Mr. Corbin asked me to invite them. . . . Actually, he was a bit more forceful than that. He scheduled a meeting for 11:30, but I don’t have the room yet.”
The guard checked a computer monitor on his desk. “Mr. Corbin’s got the conference room in the old Secretary of War’s Suite.” He gave Janet and me his full attention. “May I have your names, please?”
We gave them.
The guard checked his monitor again. “You’re on Mr. Corbin’s list. May I see a photo ID?”
“I’ll vouch for them,” Dr. Livingston told him.
He looked at her through lowered eyes. “Dr. Livingston, you know that’s not how this works.”
“Do you need me to call Mr. Corbin?” she asked. “He was most insistent that they be here. Getting him to change from ‘get them down here yesterday,’ to ‘do it by invitation if you insist – but make damned sure they come,’ took some work!”
“Ma’am, he’s also the one who said he’d saute my liver in Miller Lite if I didn’t follow protocol.”
“What’s the problem?” I asked. “It’d taste great.”
“And be less filling,” Janet added.
He just shook his head.
Livingston said, “Alright, I’ll call him!” I handed her my cell phone and she dialed.
“Hi Luther,” Livingston said. “I’m at the entrance. One of my guests doesn’t have an ID. . . . Well, yes, Chester was insistent. . . . Yes, of course.” She looked at the guard. “I’m putting him on speaker.”
“Can you hear me now?” The voice coming from the speaker was deep and rich, with the distinct cadences and of an old school Baptist Preacher.
“I can hear you, Mr. Corbin,” the guard confirmed.
“Can you indeed?” Corbin asked, lavishing a little extra love and attention on the last syllable. “Are you certain – legally, morally, and ethically certain – that the person who is addressing you in this precise and precious moment is really Luther Corbin?”
“Oh, yes sir,” Chester replied.
“Can you explain to me then, Chester, why you are keeping my guests waiting? I am extremely eager to see these fine people, this very instant!” Corbin’s voice rolled along, like a bowling ball lazily curving towards a helpless set of pins.
“You know I’ve got standards, Mr. Corbin,” Chester said, deadpan. ”I don’t hold with light beer.”
The line was silent a moment before it began to emit a deep basso rumbling noise. “Very good, Chester. Very good indeed,” Corbin chuckled. “But be so kind as to give them both badges and send ’em up here. Now would be a good time. An acceptable time, if you follow me.”
As a linguist, I was enthralled. Corbin’s accent obviously had its roots in Black Vernacular English, though he was employing more standard American English grammar and syntax. While BVE wasn’t one of my specialties, as with most linguistic variations I found it deeply fascinating. And, between his accent, his revival tent cadence, and his polished, resonant bass, he could read the tax code aloud and make it sound like the Iliad.
Chester was apparently uninterested in either linguistics or poetry – likely a common shortcoming among those whose job descriptions included multiple instances of the word “security.” His, “Yes, Mr. Corbin,” was said with practiced ease. It felt like they had this conversation fairly regularly. Turning to the Science Advisor, he said, “Room 231, Doctor Livingston. Don’t get lost, now.”
“Thank you, Chester,” she replied. Then she led Janet and I toward an ornate staircase.
As we started to climb the stairs, Janet said, “Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion!”
“It does kind of feel that way,” I said, looking around. “The Connecticut State House had the same feel – I remember touring it twenty-five or thirty years ago. Almost like those fine Victorian gentlemen determined that God Himself would frown if they left so much as an inch undecorated.”
Livingston shook her head, bemused. “There’s such a disconnect between your appearance and the things you say. You look like you’re a bit older than my youngest daughter. I’ve got three, so I have a lot of recent experience relating to girls in their late teens. My mind keeps wanting to slot you into that category and treat you accordingly.”
“And then she goes and opens her mouth,” Janet finished.
“Exactly,” Livingston agreed.
“I’m working on being female,” I said. “There are things about it I like . . . . “
Janet snorted.
And well she might, I supposed. She’s been with me from the very beginning, and was well aware of just how much I had come to enjoy – even celebrate – being female over the course of my rapid transformation. When she dashed out in the afternoon to get us both something to wear, she had known to get me an outfit that was not just practical and professional, but also pretty. The sleeveless, feather-light white silk top caressed my skin and rustled against the lace appliqué of my bra; the tailored waist of the pale pink jacket flattered my curves while my practical pants were cut to show gracefully turned ankles. . . .
“Okay,” I amended. “There’s a lot about it that I love. But . . . no matter what I look like, I can never be seventeen again.”
We had apparently arrived at the right floor, and she was guiding us down an ornate corridor. But as we approached a gleaming wooden door, she slowed. Slowed some more. And then she stopped.
She looked down, at her feet. Barely perceptibly, she trembled.
“Doctor?” I said softly.
Janet gave me a quizzical look. But she hadn’t been with me in the park earlier. Something about what had happened today had really shaken the scientist.
I felt inadequate. As James Wainwright, I had no vocabulary for this. No experience. And I couldn't relate to Dr. Livingston as the older man I had been; as she had just explained, she had a hard time putting me in that category.
I had a sudden and vivid memory of how I had felt in Professor Grimm’s Office, when I had realized just how vulnerable I was. How incapable of defending myself, if he had used his greater size, bulk and strength . . . . It had surely been much worse for Dr. Livingston today: Having her education, her intellect, her hard-won position effectively stripped away, neutralized by brute force. Being reduced, in an instant, to the tiredest of tropes, a damsel in distress.
I moved close and rested a hand, gently and tentatively, on her shoulder. “Doctor Livingston. Averil. You are not powerless here. Reason matters. Logic and science and law matter. You matter. Don’t let them take that from you!”
Janet seemed to understand in an instant, and unlike me, she was able to relate to Dr. Livingston as an older woman. “And don’t let ’em see you sweat,” she growled. “Besides . . . without their goons, they’re nothin’ but a passel of rabbits anyway. You’ll see.”
Livingston touched my hand in thanks. “I’ll be okay . . . Just . . . Had a bad moment there.” She took a deep breath, then another, and then looked up, half a smile on her face. “Very well, then. Let’s be about it.”
Janet chuckled as we moved purposefully towards the door.
* * * * *
The conference room was every bit as ostentatious and ornate – which is to say, hideous – as the building’s exterior might have suggested. Heavy, dark wood, Persian rugs, a ridiculously high ceiling festooned with frescos and ‘appropriate designs’ – even a stern and formal portrait of George Washington over the fireplace, flanked by American flags that were topped by gold-gilt descendants of the eagles of Rome. Subtle, it was not.
A long narrow table dominated the room, scarred dark wood polished to a warm luster. Five people – two women, three men – sat along one side; I recognized Dr. Singh and, on his left, the redoubtable Dukkov Earl Grant.
Left of Grant was a jowly man in a dark, conservative suit. On the other side of the jowly man were a small woman with Asian features, dark, intelligent eyes, and shoulder-length, blue-black hair, and a tall woman with iron gray hair wearing a crisp olive green uniform tunic. I wasn’t terribly conversant with military insignia.
The man at the head of the table, thoroughly and effortlessly dominating the group, had to be Luther Corbin. Although it was hard to judge since he was seated, he had to be at least six and a half feet tall and 280 pounds. At a guess, he was in his mid-fifties, and not all of those pounds were muscle. But it was still evident that they had been, not so very long ago. A horseshoe of curly, pepper and salt hair edged the well-formed dome of his head.
I wondered why so many Black men looked great bald; as James Wainwright, I had feared losing my hair.
Conversation stopped when we entered the room. I felt like everyone’s eyes were on me. Whether that was because of my appearance, or because seventeen-year-old girls aren’t normal participants in high-level meetings, or because of this morning’s events, I didn’t know. Stifling a nervous urge to swallow, I forced my low-heeled pumps to click-click-click over the hardwood floor in Dr. Livingston’s wake.
“Doctor Livin’ston . . . glad you were able to get past the gate guards so you could join us,” Corbin said. “Please have a seat, all of you.”
We sat across the table from the fearsome five. Doctor Livingston sat next to Corbin and across from Singh. I was next to her, and Janet sat on my right.
“Thank you for meeting so quickly, sir,” Dr. Livingston said. “Allow me to introduce Professor Janet Seldon from Gryphon College in Massachusetts. And next to me is someone who is, and also isn’t, a woman named Jessica James.”
Corbin’s eyes rested on me. “Yeah, I have heard a bit of this story. And your extremely competent staff kindly forwarded the file you assembled prior to your meeting this morning. We’ll get to that, I reckon. I believe you all know Dr. Singh and Mr. Grant from Homeland Security. With them are Mr. Agnew from DOD, the National Security Advisor, Doctor Tsong, and Colonel Kurtz from the NSC staff.”
Janet muttered something that sounded like, “the horror,” but I was the only one that heard her.
Corbin looked back at Doctor Livingston. “Before you were able to join us, Doctor Singh here was explaining to me that there was a ‘misunderstanding,’ today. Just a healthy disagreement between dedicated civil servants, all equally trying to advance the safety and security of this great nation we are all privileged to serve. I think it is fair to say that he believes what we have here is a failure to communicate. I wonder whether you might care to comment on that characterization of today’s events?”
All eyes were on Livingston. Grant looked curious. Tsong’s expression was unreadable, but Singh, Agnew and Kurtz all showed some mix of defiance and almost pleading. Dr. Livingston must feel the weight of that collective gaze, I thought. The pressure to not make waves . . . to move on and focus on the job.
Corbin’s expression, in contrast, was sardonic.
The Science Advisor gave a long and level look at the people on the other side of the table – her colleagues that she had worked with for two years — then said to Corbin, “There was a misunderstanding, sir.”
His eyes twinkled. “Can you elucidate the nature of this ‘misunderstanding,’ Doctor?”
She responded with a tight smile. “Yes, sir. Dr. Singh, Dr. Tsong and Mr. Agnew were under the mistaken impression that they had the right and the duty to keep me from making a report to the President.”
“That’s not remotely fair!” Dr. Singh leaned forward, his face flushed. “We simply wanted to ensure that the President was presented with a complete brief.”
Corbin raised his hand and Singh stopped.
“A moment, please, Doctor Singh,” the Chief of Staff said, mildly. “Let me educate you on a few facts. Facts which might have a bearing on our discussion here. Doctor Livin’ston told me in advance about your meeting this morning. She gave me the executive summary of Dr. Grimm’s report, so I was aware something important might be coming. Though she was good enough to detail her own skepticism.
“After your meeting, she requested an urgent meeting with the President. His schedule, by some mystery of divine providence, had a bit of space on it, so I suggested that she hustle on over. She never arrived.”
Corbin turned back to Livingston. “Now. Can you explain why you failed to show up?”
“After this morning’s meeting, Mr. Grant drove me, Professor Seldon and Ms. James to the secure medical facility out near the Cathedral.”
Corbin raised an eyebrow – he may not have been informed that I had been injured – but he gestured for her to continue.
“At my request, Mr. Grant stayed with Professor Seldon and Ms. James. He gave me the keys to the pool vehicle he was using and I went downstairs to drive here. But as soon as I had the car door open, two men came up fast. They pushed me in the back seat and drove the car to some office out in Chevy Chase. They said everything would be explained when I got there, but it wasn’t. At all. Dr. Singh was inside along with a few other men who appeared to be agents of some sort. They were taking orders from Singh. When I tried to ask questions or protest, I was told to sit down and shut up. They . . . they threatened to tie me up . . . to gag me . . . if I didn’t comply.”
She was trembling, and her face was flushed. But somehow she got all of it out without a quaver in her voice.
Good for you! I thought.
“We did no such thing!” Singh said, hotly. He rose half way from his seat, hands balling into fists. “This is absurd, and I won’t stand for it. I insist that you retract those lies this instant!!!”
“Calm yourself, Doctor Singh,” Corbin said, displaying no change in his magisterial voice. “I have it on good authority – the very best authority, indeed – that fighting is not allowed in the War Room.”
Singh slowly sank back into his seat.
Corbin looked at him calmly. “Would all of the ‘gentlemen’ who were with you validate your version of events?”
“Of course they would!”
Idiot, I thought.
Corbin smiled slowly. “Just how many corroborating witnesses would that be, Doctor Singh?”
“Uhhh . . . four? Five?” He was starting to see his mistake.
“And how many hours were you and your ‘witnesses’ alone with Doctor Livin’ston out in Chevy Chase?”
“I don’t recall, exactly. It doesn’t matter! What’s important here, I think . . . .”
Corbin tapped his index finger on the table, and his expression looked decidedly less mild. “Don’t think. It can only hurt the ballclub. Since this is my meeting, Dr. Singh, s’pose you let me decide what matters . . . and what doesn’t.”
Singh swallowed, but remained visibly defiant.
“In all the time that you and your ‘witnesses’ had at your disposal, Doctor Singh – a period that extended so long you can’t even give me an estimate of its duration – did you give Doctor Livin’ston the means – cell phone, land-line, carrier pigeon, snowy owl, or any other communications device – so that she could let me know why she had played ding dong ditch with President Taryn’s schedule?”
“She never asked!”
“Indeed?” Corbin leaned back, looking incredulous. “I have known Doctor Livin’ston for some years – As you may or may not be aware, I recommended her for her current position. And what you are saying does not accord with my personal experience of the woman. It would be most out of character, Doctor Singh.”
Singh looked stubborn. “She never asked,” he repeated.
“Mr. Corbin. May I cut through this?” The voice was clipped, precise, and dispassionate, and it belonged to the National Security Advisor.
“I wish someone would, Doctor Tsong,” the Chief of Staff rumbled. “Mrs. Corbin expected me home this evening– she had good cause to do so – and I can tell you that she is not pleased – not remotely pleased – by my continued absence!”
Dr. Tsong nodded. “Shortly after sunrise, Dr. Singh informed me that a party or parties potentially hostile to the interests of the United States were attempting to acquire fissile material from our own stockpiles. In light of the severity of the issue, we deemed it imperative to take immediate action. Accordingly, and on an expedited basis, we took appropriate steps to obtain actionable intelligence that we could take to the President, while we expedited the development of a broad range of possible responses. . . .”
“Hostile?” Janet cut off Tsong with an incredulous snort. “Be serious, will you? You might as well be afraid of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”
“I’m always serious,” the National Security Advisor said, matching tone to words.
But she had annoyed me both personally and professionally. “Serious or not, once you run all of your jargon through a plain language translation program – and I have a few I could recommend – what you're saying is that you kept Doctor Livingston from seeing the President by force, and sent a pair of goons to kidnap Janet and me for interrogation!!”
Dr. Tsong raised a pencil-thin eyebrow, but otherwise appeared unfazed by my accusation. “You don’t just walk into a store and buy plutonium, Ms. James.”
“Uranium,” I said automatically.
“Weapons-grade uranium,” she replied precisely. “There are many differences between U-235 and plutonium. Colonel Kurtz here could give you a dissertation on the subject if you have an interest in it. Availability for purchase or exchange, however, is not a distinguishing characteristic between the two materials. Did it occur to you that your proposal to acquire some might raise a few red flags within the national security establishment?”
Corbin, who had been impassively observing the by-play, decided to intervene. “If I may bring us back to the subject at hand? Dr. Tsong, Did you attempt to detain and question Ms. James or Professor Seldon?”
Dr. Singh said, “Yes, sir," before Dr. Tsong could reply.
Singh sang ere Tsong could sing, I thought, irreverently.
Corbin turned his attention back to the Undersecretary. “Well, I do seem to remember that the Constitution had something to say about detaining people. Mr. Madison, now . . . he had a way with words. ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons’ – you know? The Fourth Amendment. Poetry, pure and simple. Also, last I checked anyway, still the law of the land. So tell me, Doctor Singh. What was your legal authority for attempting to detain these fine people?”
“The Espionage Act.”
“Did you think to consult the Attorney General? Smart man. Very learned. Works not far from here, you know. Just down the road. In case it slipped your mind – what with all the grabbing and nabbing of people today – he’s on the same team as you and me and a question of this nature would seem to be within his purview.”
Singh said, “No, sir. We deemed the matter to be urgent.”
Corbin appeared to look thoughtful. “Huh. You deemed that, did you? Well . . . you at least seem to grasp the general idea that we don’t just get to detain folks without legal authority in this country.”
“Dilly, dilly,” said Janet.
“Just so, Professor,” Corbin said approvingly. “There may – just may mind – be hope for democracy yet.” Returning his attention to Dr. Singh, he said, “But before I break out the bubbly, perhaps you can tell me your authority for detaining the President’s Science Advisor?”
“Like I said, we were just talking to her,” Singh said.
“Doctor Singh.” Corbin's voice turned soft – and deadly. “You are not an imbecile. No less an authority than the University of Suthun California certified that you are not an imbecile. Stop acting like one.”
Singh’s handsome face flushed a deep, blood red and he stood abruptly. “I’ve sat here and taken this for half an hour. No more! I’m finished here!”
“Only half an hour? Don’t you like my meeting?” Then Corbin dropped his sardonic tone and barked an order. “Sit down, Doctor, or I will guarantee that you are finished here!”
For a long, tense moment, the Undersecretary’s angry eyes locked with the Chief of Staff’s hard ones.
Singh sighed and again sat.
Corbin nodded, and then continued in his normal tone. “The President is entitled to straight answers, and it’s my job to get them. Now: Did agents acting on your orders bring Doctor Livin’ston to your location against her will?”
“If they did, they exceeded the orders that I gave them.”
I sneezed explosively; by happy coincidence, the sound bore an uncanny resemblance to the word, “bullshit.”
The ghost of a smile crept up a corner of Corbin’s face. “Indeed. . . . Once Doctor Livin’ston arrived at the satellite office you appear to be maintaining in suburban Maryland, did she inform you that she had been abducted?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Seems like something a man would remember, don’t you think, Doctor Singh? . . . No? . . . . Well . . . was Doctor Livin’ston free to leave your new office space, once your people delivered her there?”
“We didn’t discuss it,” Singh said defensively.
“It is my understanding – I’m not an expert, you understand, though others at this table may be – that a discussion involves a verbal exchange. A sort of back-and-forth, if you follow me. And I am confident that no such exchange took place. You and Doctor Livin'ston appear to be in rare agreement on that exact point. But answer this, please. Did Doctor Livin’ston ever express – at any time – a present desire or intent to leave your satellite office?
“I don’t recall,” Singh repeated, sounding surly.
“Is that a fact? Really?” Corbin gave him a long, measuring look, then drawled out, “I calculate not.”
Before the Undersecretary could unburden his umbrage again, Corbin turned to the Deputy Defense Secretary. “Mr. Agnew, you’ve been very quiet this evening. Were you aware of these goings on?”
Agnew looked momentarily uncomfortable. “No, sir.”
“Doctor Singh did not call you today?” Corbin pressed.
Well, of course there would be phone records. Agnew said, “He did call, but it was about a procurement issue.”
“How many times today did the two of you chat about . . . ah . . . ‘procurement,’ Mr. Agnew?”
Agnew looked even more uncomfortable. “Several . . . I don’t know.”
“Do any of your friends know?” Corbin asked, sarcastically.
“What?” Agnew looked angry, confused and frightened.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” Janet murmured.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Agnew snarled.
“You might as well tell him the truth, Mr. Agnew,” she replied. “Once the trust goes out of a relationship, it’s really no fun lyin’ to ’em anymore.”
Corbin wrapped his knuckles on the table. “Some fine words of wisdom, Doctor Seldon. I find myself surrounded by highly educated folks tonight. More Ph.D’s than a faculty lounge!”
I smiled. “Not really. But certainly, it’s ‘Piled higher and Deeper’ in here.”
Corbin shared my smile, then turned his attention back to the other side of the table. “But what I'm finding to be in depressinly short supply are straight answers to my very simple questions. So c’mon, now! Doctor Tsong, you’re always one for cutting to the chase. Will you please enlighten me? Was the Science Advisor detained?”
Dr. Tsong looked at Doctor Livingston, then turned cool and unruffled eyes back to Corbin. “She was.”
Singh’s face turned ashen.
“Was she prevented from leaving?” Corbin asked.
“Yes,” she said again, no hint of apology in her voice.
“Prevented from communicating in any way?”
“Yes.”
“You approved this course of action?”
“I did, sir.”
“And did you discuss it with Doctor Singh and Mr. Agnew?”
“I did,” Tsong confirmed, still calm.
“No, she didn’t!” Agnew said hotly.
“She never did! Oh, lie!” Janet teased. The target, I suppose, was just too large – and moved far too slowly.
Agnew shouted, “It’s not true! I demand . . . .”
Corbin cut him off. “Mr. Agnew! You are interrupting my conversation with the President’s National Security Advisor!”
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to lies!” Agnew snarled.
“Why ever not?” Corbin asked. “I’ve had to do nothing else the entire time I've been sitting here! You don’t see me moving.”
“But it’s not true!”
Corbin gave him a hard look. “Don’t make me angry, Mr. Agnew. You wouldn’t like me when I'm angry.”
Under Corbin’s heavy glower Agnew finally subsided.
Corbin looked at Doctor Tsong again. “You’re not going’ to tell me that you suspected Doctor Livin’ston of violating the Espionage Act, are you?”
Dr. Tsong tilted her head sideways. “We thought it prudent to determine whether she had any additional contact with whoever was attempting to acquire the material.”
“You disappoint me, Doctor. We were having such a fine conversation. An intelligent conversation. You were being so singularly – so blessedly – forthright. . . . And now, evasions and temporizing. I am disconsolate, truly I am. Tell me this. Did you have any evidence – any at all – that Doctor Livin’ston was compromised? Just the facts, Ma’am.”
“Evidence? No.”
“You approved the detention of one of the President’s counselors because it was theoretically possible that she might, just maybe, be compromised?”
Dr. Tsong considered the question carefully before responding. “Yes. Under these unique circumstances, I determined that course of action was appropriate.”
“I see,” Corbin said. He looked down the table. “Colonel Kurtz, may I inquire why you are here this evening?”
“Dr. Tsong requested that I accompany her, in case you had specific questions concerning the serious nonproliferation issues raised by this . . . matter.”
Corbin gazed at her for a moment, then looked back at her supervisor. “Then you were operating under a misconception about the purpose of our meeting this evening, Doctor. The President will receive a full brief on these issues. That’s not a question. That was never a question.”
“Then, what is the point of this meeting, Mr. Corbin?” Dr. Tsong asked, the barest hint of impatience showing in her voice. “To my mind, we’ve been wasting time here. We need to find out who is targeting our nuclear arsenal, and we need to find out yesterday. Without any more nonsense about ‘space aliens’ – the elephant in the room you and everyone else appears to be ignoring.”
For the first time, Dr. Livingston broke in, exasperated. “Nonsense? How can you say that? How can you possibly explain . . . .”
Corbin’s raised hand silenced her. “A moment, please, Doctor Livin’ston.” His eyes glinted. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. My sole and exclusive purpose in summoning you all here this evening was to determine whether any of you had, as had been suggested to me, detained one of the President’s advisers.
“I will confess that when Professor Grimm informed me that this might have occurred, I greeted the idea with a certain degree of incredulity. It seemed preposterous. Ludicrous on its face. But Proffessor Grimm is not a flighty man. No, sir. Not given to fantasies, in my personal experience. In light of the importance of the accusation, I ‘deemed it imperative’ – if I may borrow your felicitous turn of phrase – to get to the bottom of the matter without delay. But now, with your help, Dr. Tsong, I ‘deem’ that my objective has been fully and completely secured.”
“Fine,” Tsong replied. “That’s resolved. Can we finally discuss the merits now?”
“Of course not,” Corbin chided. “DHS, NSC and DOD will all need to weigh in on what you are calling the ‘merits.’ But that doesn’t mean the three of you will.”
“What!” said Singh.
“Are you threatening me!” Agnew was raising his voice again.
“Mr. Corbin,” Dr. Tsong said, “You can’t fire any of us.”
Corbin slapped his heavy palm on the table with a crack, silencing the cacophony of their protests. “Unlike the three of you,” he thundered, deploying the full resonance of his deep and powerful voice, “I am not confused when I look in the mirror every morning! I know that I am not the President of these United States! I thank God that I am not the President! No one elected me to do anything. But – try to follow me here – no one elected any of you, either! And all of you forgot that today. You tried to keep information from reaching the President. You didn’t trust him to do what’s right. You thought he might go off half-cocked, before you could weigh in. Or, maybe you thought he would make a decision you wouldn’t much like.”
Under his suddenly lava-hot glare, even Dr. Tsong lowered her eyes.
The silence lingered.
Janet was staring at Corbin’s powerful hand, still holding down the conference table. Quietly, she said, “It was with this hand that Cain iced his brother.”
Corbin nodded without smiling – and without taking his eyes off the officials on the other side of the table. “Just so,” he said softly. Then, in a more normal tone, he said, “Each of you exceeded your authority, and quite probably violated the laws of the United States, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia. I want your letters of resignation on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. I will brief the President, and he can decide for himself whether to accept them.” As an afterthought, he said, “Not you, Colonel. Or you, Mr. Grant.”
Dr. Tsong pushed her chair back and rose. “You’ll have it, Luther.” She walked briskly to the door and left the room.
“We should be able to make our own cases to the President,” Dr. Singh objected.
“He knows where to reach you, Doctor. Assuming he has any desire to do so.” Corbin’s richly expressive voice suggested his opinion on the odds of such an event occuring.
“Mr. Corbin,” Agnew began, trying – a bit too late, in my opinion – to sound reasonable.
“You are excused, Mr. Agnew,” Corbin said, the flatness in his voice conveying a certain Old Testament finality.
Singh and Agnew looked at each other, then Singh shrugged and they both got up. Colonel Kurtz and Mr. Grant rose as well.
“Bide a moment, if you would, Mr. Grant,” Corbin said to the stocky staffer.
Ignoring the sharp look he got from his supervisor, Grant resumed his seat. The rest of them left.
Corbin looked at the three of us. “You appear to have had something of an ordeal today. For which you have my sincerest apologies. I have some idea of what went on, but not very much. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear from Mr. Grant first.”
Dr. Livingston gave a knowing smile.
I must have looked as surprised as I felt – why wasn’t he asking Livingston? – because Corbin said, “Ms. James, this government of ours is very large. Very large indeed. Staffing it’s a nightmare. Sometimes you need to give someone a position – the reasons go from good to bad to downright tawdry – when you’re not certain they’re up to it. So you sick a watch-dog on ’em. Mr. Grant here is one of the best.” He nodded at Grant. “Fill me in, if you would be so very kind.”
Grant nodded respectfully and gave a short, concise summary of the events of the morning, ending with dropping Janet and me off at the Metro. He also described his later conversation with Gavin Grimm.
Corbin sat through the entire recitation without asking a single question. His eyebrows moved once or twice, but almost nothing else. When Grant finished, Corbin gave him a thoughtful look. “Alright, Mr. Grant. Your opinion now. Are we really dealing with space aliens?”
Grant clearly expected the question. “Yes, sir.” His voice was firm. “Or if we aren’t, we might as well be. They are too far advanced in both biological and physical sciences. I took the liberty of collecting a few pieces of evidence, if that would be of assistance to you.”
“I’ll happily play Missouri, Mr. Grant. What do you have?”
Grant pulled a briefcase from the floor by his feet. From a pocket, he pulled two pieces of metal. “I went back to the parking lot across from Roosevelt Island this afternoon. After some searching, I found both the brass casing and the slug that hit Ms. James when she interposed herself between Officer Durant and the alien.”
Reaching into the main compartment of the briefcase, he pulled out a handgun in an evidence bag. “This is the gun that Tom Durrant was carrying this morning. Ballistics confirms a match between the gun and the bullet.”
“You appear to have been busy, Mr. Grant.”
“Yes sir. But there’s more.” He pulled out the shirt that had been taken off of me at the medical facility. “I had the lab look at this as well. They confirm – based on the sample obtained from Ms. James at the lab – that the blood on the fabric is hers, and is less than a day old. You can estimate the path of the bullet from the front and back holes. The internal damage had to be extensive. Ms. James should have died within minutes.” He reached into yet another compartment and pulled out a sheaf of paper. “Copies of the lab and ballistics reports.” He gave them to Corbin.
I was having a hard time with the shirt, honestly. I was suddenly remembering the intensity of the pain . . . my absolute certainty that I was about to die . . . how the world had darkened and sound had dulled . . . Janet’s distant and despairing cry . . . the smell of the pavement against my cheek . . . .
“Jessica? Jess? Honey?” Janet’s voice sounded very far away. And the conference room was fading . . . .
I heard a sharp crack and felt a sting on my cheek. I blinked and found my sight returning.
“Sorry, Ms. James.” Doctor Livingston looked contrite. “My Granny taught me that one.”
I took a long breath and said, “No . . . thank you. I was about to lose it. Could we . . . I’m sorry. Could we please not look at that thing right now?”
“I’ll take the whole briefcase, Mr. Grant,” Corbin said. “”You can put it away for now.” Turning his attention to me, he said, “I apologize again, Ma’am. I grew up on the streets of Baltimore and I’ve seen a whole lotta clothes that look like that. Too many. But it’s good evidence, and I'm gonna need it.”
I nodded.
“Doctor Livin’ston, I should like to hear how you managed to escape from our dedicated civil servants this evening.”
Like Grant’s, her summary was concise but hit all the important points. It was abundantly clear that neither of them had ever been a member of a university faculty. They could give lessons . . . but no. Far more likely the academy would corrupt them than that they would reform it.
When she was done, Corbin said, “Under the circumstances, I guess I don’t need to inquire whether you accept the idea that we’re dealing with an alien species.”
Dr. Livingston shook her head, but she looked troubled. “No, of course not. But . . . Luther? How is it even possible that Ranveer didn’t come to the same conclusion? He was there when Ms. James was shot – and when she was healed. He must have spoken with his agents this evening after I was ripped out of their hands by a tractor beam. Agnew . . . Tsong. I guess I get them. They weren’t there. But I don’t understand Ranveer at all!”
“All lies and jests, but a man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest.” The comment was spoken softly. The speaker, surprisingly, was Grant.
Dr. Livingston nodded. “I get that, I guess. . . . But why would he want to see only trouble, where there is such an opportunity? Want it so bad that he would even . . . . I mean. . . .” Her face flushed, but she took a steadying breath and continued. “Look, I knew Tsong and Agnew, some. Worked with them occasionally. But Ranveer was a friend of mine. I thought he was, anyway.”
“There is some wisdom in the adage that anyone in this town who wants a friend should get a dog,” Corbin responded wryly. “I don’t know why Dr. Singh did what he did, though I expect we’ll need to find out at some point. Right now, though, all I care about is getting his hands off the machine right quick.”
“Amen to that,” Dr. Livingston said fervently.
Silence fell, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, I shook my head. “If I may inquire, Mr. Corbin, what happens now?”
“Now?” Corbin’s eyes twinkled. “Just this instant I highly recommend sleep. I need it, of a certainty. And all of you, I expect, need it even more.”
I looked at Janet and saw my own weariness magnified in her face. But . . . “I guess what I was really asking is whether the alien’s proposal will get a hearing.”
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” Janet sighed.
Corbin smiled at Janet, but responded to my question. “The short answer is, absolutely. But it may take some time. The President will need input from a number of agencies before we can even say whether we will negotiate at all. And I expect – no, I am certain – that the President will want to talk with you both before he decides that question. Could possibly be more than once.
“The fact that they will only talk to you may complicate matters, Ms. James. Though after today’s events I can’t say I fault their logic. But we can deal with that tomorrow.” Corbin smiled wearily. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
“Except that it’s 1:00 a.m., so tomorrow really isn't another day,” Livingston replied.
“And isn’t that a cheerful thought,” Corbin sighed.
Janet said, “I hate to take a dump on the table, but . . . How long is all of this gonna take, and will we be safe while all of this ‘input’ is bein’ tossed into the Presidential cereal bowl?”
Corbin chuckled. “Professor, we could use a few like you around here. We surely could! Damn-all everyone has opinions in this building, and no one has a lick a’ sense. . . .
“As to your first question, I regret to say that it depends. The amount of time it takes to get a decision is normally equal to the amount of time we have to make it. A sad, very sad, corollary to Parkinson’s Law. I am supremely confident that your government is capable of sitting on this question until the Christ returns in glory and splendor – IF the aliens give us that long.
“Your second question, now . . . . I'd love t’say ‘Yes, of course.’ But I’d have to be an idiot to believe we’ve defanged all the snakes that’ll be lurkin’ in the tall grass . . . . I believe Mr. Grant’s description of ‘institutional paranoia' is entirely accurate. Plus, there’s plain ol’ turf wars, not to mention outside financial interests . . . . So, what with this ’n that, I do think it’d be a good idea to find y’all someplace safe to hole up. I don’t suppose any of you can identify Singh’s ‘agents.’”
Janet curled her lip. “They all look the same to me.”
“Maybe,” I said hesitantly.
Dr. Livingston shivered. “Yes. Until the day I die, likely.” She looked at Corbin. “Do I need to ‘hole up’ too, Luther? Mike and Christine are back at the house as well . . . I’m worried about them.”
“I'm not seeing the danger to you at this point, Averil,” Corbin said gently. He put a hand over hers. “Now that you’ve given me your report, they won’t be so worried about what you might say to the President.”
“They could go after you too, sir,” Grant pointed out.
“Hell-bent on demonstrating the plus side of institutional paranoia, aren’t you?” Corbin asked with a smile. “But I won’t leave here until I’ve documented everything – and folks know I work that way.”
Grant nodded, satisfied.
“Make sure your punch card reflects the OT,” Janet said.
Corbin smiled, then turned serious. “Do you two have someplace safe to stay tonight? I think I can make satisfactory arrangements by tomorrow, but it’s mighty late now.”
I said, “I think so . . . and, I think we have the ability to monitor any threats that may come our way, at least for the next few hours.”
Janet’s eyes widened, then she smiled. “Good point.”
Mr. Grant said, “I think their protection is actually pretty good, sir. At least for tonight.”
“Is it, Mr. Grant? Is it indeed? I'm truly delighted to hear that! And relieved!”
* * * * *
Mr. Grant gave us a ride back to our hotel since it was too late to catch a Metro train. At this point I was more than willing to trust Grant. And besides, as I had intimated at the end of the meeting, we could depend on a bit of assistance from our friends in the sky.
We called Worm as soon as we were in our room. I was about to give him a summary of what had happened, when I remembered. “You actually heard the whole thing, didn’t you?”
“Affirmative, Jessica James. It . . . painful was. How does survive your species?”
“We . . . manage, I guess. Somehow,” I said.
“It's what ‘humor’ is for, Worm,” said Janet. “We couldn't survive, otherwise.”
“That . . . puzzling is,” he replied.
“Yeah,” I said. “Though . . . we couldn’t imagine facing life, the universe and everything without it. As, I suppose, you must.” Changing the subject, I said, “Listen . . . I think we made a lot of progress tonight. I’m hoping we can really get the ball moving now. The President’s going to get filled in tomorrow. But . . . Mr. Corbin wants to know your deadline. How long do we have to get a deal done?”
“Six days, Jessica James.”
“Six days! What happens if we can’t get it done by then?” I was panicking.
Suddenly animated, Worm said, “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?”
“Oh, shit. Really?” Janet said.
“Really, Professor Seldon,” Worm responded. “Attorney Justin Abel us advised.”
I knew it! I knew Justin was behind some of the alien’s recent moves! I thought for a moment. “Worm . . . if you need to keep secrets for negotiation, we understand. But . . . we’re going to have to have conversations on this end that you shouldn’t listen to either. Fair’s fair, right?”
“If you tell us, not listen this conversation to, we will listen not, Jessica James.” Worm affirmed.
“All right. I know I can trust you,” I said. “Just don’t let your slippery attorney suggest ways to get around that!”
“That’s a promise, Ma’am,” he said. He actually sounded reassuring.
He agreed that the ship’s sensors would monitor all approaches to our hotel and, within the hotel, to our room. He also said he would call us if there was a problem, and I was completely comfortable relying on that.
We collapsed into bed and did not wake up until after 10:00 am. We would have slept later, but my phone was ringing.
“Jessica James,” I said, answering it.
“Good morning, Ms. James,” said Luther Corbin’s voice. “I hope you had a fine night’s sleep?”
“Wouldn’t have minded a few more hours . . . but I don’t actually know what time it is.”
“I can apprecciate that sentiment, Ms James, I surely can. But, I was wondering whether you and Professor Seldon might be interested in a bit of golf today.”
“Golf?”
“Yes, indeed. Not my thing, you understand. Not what I learned on the streets of Baltimore. But the President, now . . . he enjoys a game now’n again. Gives him a bit of quiet time, if you follow me. Away from crowds and prying eyes.”
The light dawned, and I was, suddenly, Very awake. “We’d like nothing better, Mr. Corbin. What time, and where?”
“I’ll send a car around 2:00. That give you ladies enough time?”
“Yes, sir!”
He ended the call.
Janet was giving me a sour look. “We’d like nothing better than to play golf? Seriously? I’d like nothing better than to sleep another six hours. Or maybe sixteen.”
“Yeah, but, he means ‘meet with the President while he plays golf.’”
“No shit? Well . . . I guess I can haul my weary bones out of bed for that . . . . in a bit.”
“Not ‘in a bit,’ Janet. Now. I know what I’m going to say. But what are we going to wear?”
. . . . To be continued. Indeed.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 14: Man of the People
We were picked up at our hotel promptly at 2:00. The driver surprised us.
“Chauffeuring seems like kind of a strange side-gig for a Science Advisor,” Janet said with a smile.
Dr. Livingston smiled back. “But it’s a really good gig, when there’s a shortage of drivers with high-level security clearances.” She looked much better than she had in the early hours of the morning. I suspected we did, too.
“Ahh,” I said. “That makes sense. So, what super-secret, hush-hush things do you need to tell us before we meet with the President?”
“Oh, you’re not meeting with him. Not at all. He’s playing golf with me. My mom and one of my daughters are coming, too. I haven’t decided which daughter yet. The youngest, probably, though you don’t look much like her.”
I shook my head. “Sorry . . . it’s been a long couple of days. You’ve lost me.”
Janet giggled.
“I think your colleague figured it out,” Livingston said, real humor in her voice. “The President’s schedule is an open book. Mostly. So if he’s doing a round of golf, there’s a record of when, and how he got there, and who he golfed with. Right now, though, you two don’t exist and we don’t want your presence to be a matter of record. So I’m joining the President for golf today – along with a few others – and he said I could bring my mom and my daughter. One of them, anyway.”
Janet, who was in the passenger’s seat, looked over at the Science Advisor, who looked trim and athletic in pale blue shorts and a nylon top with a soft collar and capped sleeves in a pleasant shade of medium green. “You’n me could maybe be related. Maybe. If you had an off day, and I was at top form. But you and Jessica look like you came from different ends of the Anglo Saxon gene pool, if you follow me.”
Dr. Livingston laughed. “My husband’s family is old money. Perhaps the women have greater . . . . ahh . . . endowments?”
“Or, maybe it was that really cute postman’s family?” Janet grinned evilly.
“He was kind of a hunk . . . .” Livingston said playfully, before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter, really. The story doesn’t have to be all that plausible. We just need to be able to say something.”
I looked down at the abbondanza that was causing such trouble in the plausibility department and sighed. “Perhaps we can turn to less weighty matters?” I suggested, hopefully.
“Like U-235,” Janet said, deadpan.
The President’s Science Advisor laughed uproariously.
“I’m glad you're both having a good time!” But I immediately relented. “Actually, Dr. Livingston, I am glad you're having a good time. Mostly because I was worried about you last night. But also, more selfishly, because your mood suggests that maybe you’ve had some good news?”
She nodded. “Luther Corbin called me around 10:30. The President will be announcing a reorganization of his National Security team later today. Just a routine thing; what you might expect after a couple years on the job.”
Janet smiled. “This time, the lie isn’t more interesting.”
“He accepted all of their resignations?” I asked.
“Yup. Every one. And apparently had no desire to talk to any of them, either.”
“Corbin struck me as a pretty persuasive guy,” Janet said in an admiring tone.
“Indeed,” Dr. Livingston said. “Might as well argue with the Prophet Ezekiel.”
“Doctor Livingston,” I began.
She stopped me. “Please, do me a favor. Call me Averil.”
“Really?”
“Really. Both of you – but especially you, Jessica. It’s hard for me to remember that you aren't a seventeen-year-old girl – or, at least, that you aren’t just that. We’ve all got Ph.D’s of one sort or another, and you’re closer to my mom’s age than my daughters’. When you use my first name, it reminds me.”
“Okay . . . Averil.”
“Just not when we’re around the boss!” She added.
Janet was surprised. “The President’s a stickler for formality? I never would have guessed!”
“The President? Oh, heavens, no! He’s a politician – a man of the people and all that.” She waved one hand airily. “‘Stuffy’ loses you votes. I was talking about Ezekiel.”
We laughed.
“What I was going to ask,” I said, “was whether you know who else will be with the President this afternoon. Will this be a repeat of yesterday?”
“I don’t know what it’ll be like,” she said thoughtfully. “Apart from the President, the most important player will be the SecDef, Jack Bradley.”
“Now that’s funny,” Janet said. “For the Fenway faithful, Jackie Bradley Junior is the Secretary of Defense.”
“No relation, I’m sure,” Dr. Livingston – Averil – replied. “I expect Colonel Kurtz will be there too. I’m not sure about her. Someone from Corbin’s shop, but I don’t know who. And the wild card is Stanley Aguia. The President asked for him specifically. They go way back, but I don’t know the details. Former military, I know that much.”
“Pretty weighted toward the Defense crowd again,” I said glumly. “It’d really be nice if all of us could get through the afternoon without being kidnapped, arrested or shot.”
Janet sighed. “Yeah, sometimes it’s the little things.”
Averil shuddered. “You won’t get any argument from me on that score, I promise you. But nothing’s going to happen until everyone is confident that we’re not doing anything that weakens national defense.”
“Any advice? Things we should avoid saying? Anything like that?” I felt like I was flying blind. I had sixty years of life experience, but none of it involved meeting with people like these.
None of it involved golf, either.
Averil thought for a moment. “The President takes some getting used to . . . . Hard to describe . . . . But one thing: Don’t shade the truth. He’s got an uncanny ability to sniff out lies.”
We talked as Averil drove us out into the Virginia suburbs. We knew we were getting close when we started seeing lots of unmarked black SUVs, then people wearing suits, shades and ear pieces. We were stopped by a couple fine examples of the male of the species, buff and clean cut.
Averil lowered her window. “Good morning. Averil Livingston and guests. I believe Mr. Corbin made a notation on the ID requirement?”
“Good morning, Doctor,” one of the pair said. “We’ve got you three on the list. Can you pop the hatch for us?”
His partner inspected the back. “Sweet set of sticks, Doc!”
The first guy waved us on. “Over by the pavilion, Doctor. The President’s inbound and should be here in five.”
She thanked him and drove over to the indicated area, where some more nice, discreetly armed young men helped Averil with her clubs.
I saw Colonel Kurtz over on the side and decided to take the bull by the horns. I walked in her direction, but lowered my head and said softly, “Okay, Worm, no listening until I either call you or wave both hands over my head.”
“Colonel Kurtz.” I extended my hand. “We didn’t meet under the best circumstances last night. I’m Jessica James.”
“Ms. James.” Her expression was unreadable, but she did not hesitate to shake my hand. “Mr. Corbin had me briefed in on all of yesterday’s events. I understand what happened last night – and this morning – a bit better now.”
Before I could respond, a man whose face was – like Science Advisor’s – familiar to me from television, came over to say hello. “You must be Ms. James,” he said. “Jack Bradley.” He stuck out a powerful hand.
I was a bit startled; on television, all you tended to see of the Secretary of Defense was his craggy face, bristle-brush brows and wavy silver-gray hair. The fact that he was 5’3” on a good day only registered in person. “Very pleased to meet you, sir,” I said, shaking his hand. Or, rather, taking his hand in mine so that he could do the shaking. He might be short, but I’d give him good odds of winning best of three arm wrestling a kodiak bear.
“I hear you might’ve been partly responsible for my sudden need for a new deputy,” he said.
“Well . . . ahh . . . I didn’t . . . I mean . . . .” I thought, Pull yourself together, Jessica!
He barked a laugh and gave my arm a pat that staggered me. “Don’t worry about it. The only people who’re gonna regret Trevor’s decision to spend more time with his family are related to him.”
“I . . . Oh!” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Agnew had struck me as being pretty unpleasant.
“So off to work I go,” Bradley responded with a smile. “And right on cue, here comes the chief. Dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum.”
The sound of a rapidly-approaching helicopter made any further communication impossible. A big, white-topped dual-engine Sikorsky with “United States of America” on the body came over the trees and settled lightly on a designated pad.
As the rotors began to slow, a door – hatch? – opened and people began to exit the helicopter. President Taryn came out immediately after two (more) members of his security detail, looking just like he did on television – spry, silver-haired, jaunty smile. Despite the summer heat, he wore dark pants and shoes, though his sky-blue golf shirt was less somber and paired well with his famously blue eyes. He strode towards the pavilion, exuding an eagerness he may or may not have felt.
I didn’t recognize the man who came behind Taryn. Tall, almost skeletal, coal dark eyes, a lean face and a nimbus of soft white hair. More people followed.
“Ruh roh,” the President said as he came to where everyone gathered. “Averil brought her magic clubs again. Sorry, Jack, but this time she’s on my team.”
“Not very sporting, Tom.” The SecDef had the air of someone who’s repeating a familiar ritual.
“Relax!” The President was grinning evilly. “Mr. Corbin sent Tanya along. She’ll take care of you.”
An athletic looking Latina woman standing behind the president broke into a slow smile. “Sorry, Mr. Secretary. You drew the short straw.”
“I didn’t draw anything!” he protested.
“That’s okay,” President Taryn said. “I drew for you ’cuz you weren’t around.”
“Uh huh,” Bradley said skeptically. “I don’t suppose there were witnesses?”
“Of course not,” the President said cheerfully. “There weren’t any straws either. I just decided how long each of our straws would be. Yours was shorter.”
“The whole decider thing . . . it warps a man.” Bradley sounded sorrowful.
“I like to think of it as bending the arc of the universe toward justice,” the President retorted happily. “Let’s get started, shall we? Averil, why don’t you have your mom and charming daughter come with us. And . . . Katherine? Will you join us as well?”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Colonel Kurtz murmured.
“Tom’s rules, now,” the President admonished. “Once we step onto the course, no titles, offices, honorifics or protocol. Bad enough I gotta put up with it at the ranch.” He gave Tanya a winning smile. “You’ll be so kind as to not mention this to Mr. Corbin?”
“Unless he asks, Mr. President. . . . Which, he so will.” Tanya had a really lovely smile too, and used it to good effect.
The President’s only response was, “Alright, alright, let’s get this train rolling!”
We walked away from the group by the pavilion and over to the area where golfers teed off for the first hole. In addition to the people I had heard the President invite, there were two members of the President’s detail and the older man with the white hair.
The President made a point of walking with Averil, Janet and me. “Based on my morning briefing from Mr. Corbin and Mr. Grant, you’ll be Janet Seldon and . . . Jessica James?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Janet said, defying “Tom’s rules.”
He continued to smile, but shook his head slightly. “First names serve an extra purpose today, so let’s shift to them. Remember, neither of you are here, officially. Jessica . . . Please accept my apology, both personally and on behalf of your government, for what happened yesterday.”
“Of course, M . . . M . . .” I blushed furiously.
“‘Tom,’ he said, firmly. “For this afternoon only, I’m afraid. And don’t tell the boss!”
“Mr. Corbin?” I asked.
“Well, not him either. But I was really thinking of Marianne.” Marianne Taryn, the President’s wife, was widely reported to stand tall and firm on her husband’s dignity.
I took a steadying breath. My late father would have been appalled at the notion of calling the Commander-in-Chief by his first name, but this was the President’s show. “Okay. Well . . . apology accepted . . . Tom. So, we’re not going to get arrested or shot today?”
“Not today,” he said easily. “And with the protection you two have, I’m thinking tomorrow looks pretty safe for you, too.”
“So you, at least, accept that the aliens are real?” I asked.
“I saw your shirt,” he responded soberly. “And the rest of the evidence Grant gathered. Hard to explain it away. Although honestly” – his expression became mischievous – "it's easier to believe in aliens than to believe you were ever a sixty-year-old guy.”
“True, nonetheless,” I said.
“You’re very attractive, for a beautiful girl with a great body,” he said, eyes twinkling.
“She’s got that going for her, which is nice,” Janet agreed.
“Ha! Well played!” the President exclaimed, delighted.
I groaned. “A little birdie warned me that you’d have an opinion!”
He grinned. “No, no, Jessica. Mere mortals have opinions; presidents have positions!”
“Keep it up, and your position might be ‘supine.’” I quipped.
“Excellent!” His face was full of mirth. “This will be an interesting day!” He turned to the Defense Secretary. “Jack, why don’t you get us started.”
The Secretary stuck something in the ground, put a golf ball on top of it, and selected a club from his bag. He made a show of looking down the fairway and gauging the wind. He took a few practice swings, then got himself positioned for his shot. His club went upward then began a smooth arc toward his ball.
“Space aliens, huh?” the President said.
Bradley’s club connected with the grass just in front of his ball. “Dammit!”
“Don’t take such a negative view,” the President said. “This could be good for us.”
“Agnew was wrong about almost everything,” Bradley replied. “But even a broken clock is right sometimes.” He returned his attention to the ball. “I’m gonna just pretend you didn’t do that intentionally, Tom.”
He was just about to raise his club again when the President said, “The evidence for their existence seems pretty conclusive, Jack.”
The Secretary growled something that involved “God” and “patience” but I couldn’t follow most of it. “Tanya, why don’t you lead us off,” he said after a moment.
She nodded and moved to set up her ball.
Bradley gave Janet and me a look of apology, then turned his attention to the President. “Tom, I had a long meeting this morning and I haven’t gone through the brief in detail. . . . But . . . the whole thing just seems too incredible. There’s a hoax here. I don’t know what it is, but there’s just got to be a hoax.”
The President looked at him thoughtfully. “It’s an attitude I know we’re going to see a lot. And I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to change it. Averil had a direct experience, and she was convinced by it – but that’s what it took. And even that wasn’t enough for Dr. Singh.”
Tanya’s swing connected with the ball solidly, and it flew high and straight. She looked pleased.
Bradley looked even more pleased. “Well . . . We might give you a game yet. I should be able to get it on the green from there!”
“Now who’s talking crazy?” The President asked. He got his ball set up for a shot. Like Bradley, he made a point of looking toward the green, judging the wind, and generally doing things that probably made sense to a golfer.
Not that I’d know anything about that.
When he appeared to have satisfied the golf gods, he took up his stance and took a steadying breath. Then he looked over at Bradley. “Don’t even think about it, Jack!”
He turned back to the ball, then swung his club up and down with surprising grace. He grunted. “Sliced it. Damn. Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't. . . . . So science – or at least a scientist – will have to save me.”
The group started to walk down the fairway, leaving their gear behind. I wasn’t sure why, but it quickly became apparent that this group of golfers, at least, had people who took care of details like that. We hadn’t gone more than thirty yards when a pair of golf carts passed us with all the gear loaded on them.
“You’ve got to give me a better reason for skepticism, Jack,” the President said. “If we aren’t alone in the universe – which you have to admit is at least possible – and if anyone ever found us, it would by definition be something we’d never encountered before.”
“Maybe that’s just two ‘ifs,’ but even you’ve got to admit that they’re big ones,” the Secretary replied. “Quality has a quantity of its own, or something like that.”
“Size matters, maybe?” Janet offered.
I paused a moment to tie one of my new sneakers. They were white with a bit of pink piping, which described the rest of my golf outfit as well. A crisp, snow-white nylon golf shirt, pink on the inside of the collar, and a matching pair of skorts. I had added a pink visor, sunglasses, and a veritable oil slick of sunscreen.
When I stood again, I stretched and muttered. We needed to get past all of the ‘do aliens exist’ folderal and feathers. We had only six days, as I’d told Corbin when I called him back late in the morning.
Janet was waiting for me up ahead, so I trotted to catch up with her. “Getting impatient?” she asked.
“More than a bit. Which is stupid, I know. We only just had our first meeting yesterday, and we’re already talking to the President of the Freakin’ United States. But . . . I’m getting pretty tired of having people look at me like I’ve lost my mind.”
“Don’t let it bother you,” she soothed. “All the best people are entirely bonkers.”
“Oh, thank you very little,” I sighed.
We caught up with the golfers. Bradley was setting up his shot, once again looking like he was contemplating a complicated problem in applied geometry or ballistics. Which, I suppose, he was.
“Alright,” Bradley said pointedly, “If I may receive from the Commander-in-Chief the same courtesy I extended to him?”
The President laughed and waved him on. “I’ll be quiet as a war memorial! As the dew! Quiet as an ant pissing on cotton! As quiet as . . . .!”
"As a corpse, if you keep it up!" Bradley glowered at him.
"Now, now, Jack. Don't make the Detail nervous. You know how they are!" But the President desisted, with a smile and a chuckle.
The Secretary set up his shot. Again, the powerful arms swung up, then down, connecting with the ball with a satisfying “crack.” The ball leapt forward and up, climbing in a smooth, parabolic arc . . . until, at its apex, it inexplicably shot straight up thirty feet or more, paused, paused a bit longer than gravity appeared to permit, then dropped straight to the ground.
“What the . . . .” The Secretary’s jaw hung open
“What did you hit?” Tanya asked, confused.
“There’s nothing there to hit! And it hovered like . . . magic.” Colonel Kurtz intervened for the first time.
The President was looking at me shrewdly. “Lucy,” he said, “You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
Bradley said, “What?” Then he saw where the President was looking. “You?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “The aliens. You might say I called in the strike, though.”
“How?” Bradley was looking at me carefully. “I mean, the mechanism.”
“The alien ship employs a tractor beam for a variety of purposes. Janet and I, and Doc . . . I mean, Averil . . . have been taken up to the ship by that method. And brought back down. I communicated with the aliens and suggested that they block your shot.”
“They can hear you? Right now?” The Secretary looked positively grim.
“They can.” I wondered whether my little demonstration might backfire. “But they don't, because I asked them not to listen.”
“And we’re supposed to take that on faith?” The Secretary was incredulous. Taking things on faith was apparently in the nature of a cardinal sin.
“I’m not sure whether there’s anything we can do about it, one way or another,” I replied. “But yes. I think you should take it on faith.”
The President decided to intervene. “Tell us why, Jessica. Why should we trust them? Why do you?” His voice was unusually serious.
I looked at them all – The President, the Secretary of Defense, all the rest of the entourage. How to convey this to them? How could I make these powerful people understand something so simple? So fundamental? “You should trust them, because they have consistently played it straight when they didn’t need to. They want weapons-grade uranium. That sounds crazy, I know. But they do. You just saw an example of what their tractor beam can do. What would stop them from just taking what they want?”
“We don’t leave that material just lying around in the open,” Bradley countered. But his voice wasn’t hostile. He was just testing my logic.
“I wouldn’t bet on that being enough to stop them. But even if they couldn’t take the material with the tractor beam alone, sure’s hell they could make us give it to them,” I said in response.
“How?” Bradley asked, curious.
Before I could say anything, the tall man with the white hair spoke. “Oh, come on Jack, I taught you all better than that. We’re at the bottom of a gravity well, they’re sitting on top of it. They can just hang out and drop rocks on us – we call ’em asteroids – until we say ‘uncle.’ And we would, right quick.”
Bradley and the President both looked thoughtful. I decided to press the advantage. “And that might be how we would be thinking, if our positions were reversed. But they don't think that way. That’s my point. They are aliens. Their minds aren’t wired like that.”
The tall man nodded to me gravely. “Exactly so, young woman – or distinguished professor, if I may violate Tom’s rules to make a point. Stanley Aguia,” he said by way of introduction. Then he turned to the President and the Secretary. “It stands to reason that a species that has attained sentience in a completely different ecosystem would reason in ways that are entirely foreign to us.”
The President said, “We need to keep talking, but for a whole host of reasons – including the benefit of pool reporters and their long-range cameras – we also need to keep playing.”
I must have looked started; the President grinned impishly. “Life in the fishbowl. Just smile and wave, Jessica. Smile and wave! Now – Averil, you’re up next.” He started walking to where the Science Advisor’s shot had fallen. The party followed him.
“I should get to redo my shot,” Bradley called over to him.
The President’ smile was feral. “Ah, no, Jack. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Behold the wages of unbelief.”
We stood around as Averil got set to take her shot. As the others had, she carefully surveyed the lay of the land. She was much further from the green than Bradley had been, but she didn’t seem too worried about it. I know less about good golf form than Ensign Worm knows about human aesthetics, but her swing looked as smooth and polished as heirloom silver on Christmas day.
CRACK. Her shot sailed gracefully . . . gracefully . . . and landed in the heart of the green, probably ten yards from where the flag proclaimed the hole to be.
“God be praised!” The President said, appreciatively.
“Your doing again?” Bradley asked me with a glower.
“No . . . errrr . . . Jack.” I said. “I don’t think the tractor beam could do that – or at least, do it and look natural. I only asked the aliens to block your shots until I gave them the signal.”
“And have you?” he asked.
I smiled. “Not yet.”
He glowered at me some more, but then a rueful smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, well . . . I guess maybe I can believe I’m talking to a nasty old guy who tortured kids with linguistics!”
Now we walked toward the place where Jack’s aborted shot had landed.
The President looked at me and Janet. “What can you tell us about the aliens? What drives them . . about how do they think? You seem rock solid certain about them, even though – as you just pointed out – they’re alien and we can’t really get inside their heads.”
I thought about the question carefully. “What I know for a fact isn’t all that different from what you know, ahh . . . T-T-Tom,” I stuttered. “Oh, damn it! I’m sorry. I’ll try, sir, but it just cuts against everything I was ever taught!”
He smiled, but just waved me to continue.
“But what I have observed from their behavior, and taken from our conversations with them, is more extensive. It’s not exactly evidence, since it’s conceivable that they made up the whole thing. But, there’s just no reason for them to have done that.
“Anyhow, they don’t have separate genders; each of them has the equivalent of both sperm and eggs. Getting into mating ‘heat,’ if you will, is apparently difficult, and for reasons I certainly don’t understand, high octane uranium does it for them. Their young mature very slowly and they live for centuries. I believe, mostly based on what they have said about their language, that the species has some sort of collective memory. Possibly as a result, they place a very high value on social cohesion.”
“Ah,” said Aguia. “That’s interesting. Discord – fighting – would be difficult then, wouldn’t it?”
The President’s party was looking at Aguia oddly, but I nodded. “Exactly. Our disagreements – even our petty lawbreaking – caused them great distress. The youngest member of their team said they were ‘rule followers.’ And he wanted to make sure they weren’t breaking any of our rules, too. It simply wouldn’t have occurred to them to take the U-235, once they knew it was illegal.”
“The alien leader said they would only deal with Jessica because she had honor,” Averil added. “The rest of us, based on what they’ve seen so far, appear to be on probation.”
“Stopping my ball in mid-flight doesn’t seem very honorable,” Bradley huffed, though he softened the comment with a smile.
“Sore sport,” the President said.
“Well, I’m only human,” I said humbly.
Janet shook her head. “Truth is, I doubt the aliens would have gone along with Jessica’s demonstration if they’d known it broke the rules, even if it’s just a game.”
The President’s eyes grew wide in shock. “Just a game? Young woman! This is golf we’re talking about!”
Janet looked pleased. The advantage of hanging out with political leaders, I suppose, is that a sixty-year-old can feel young.
“Okay, a really, really important game, then!” she amended. “Either way, they don’t like breakin’ rules. I mean, at all. Upsets their chi. But our miasma of laws, rules, and the like is bafflin’ to them. Apparently they don’t have a lot of rules, but they follow the ones they have.”
“They sound like paragons,” Colonel Kurtz said, skepticism clear in her voice.
“No,” Janet corrected. “They sound like complete goofballs. Like a mash-up of Monty Python and the Muppets. But that’s just because our language is confusin’ to them.”
“They’ve actually done very well with it,” I said, “given that their own language is based on an entirely different principle, and depends on the stories – or, as they would say, The Story – in their collective consciousness. But Janet’s right. If you spoke with one of them – the youngest is the only one who tries to speak English – you would find it comical.”
“And that’s why you’re their spokesman? Woman? Whatever?” Bradley asked.
“I’m honestly not sure if that’s how they see my role,” I said slowly. “And their thinking on this may have evolved. I don’t know, at this point, whether they see me as an emissary from them, or an emissary to them.”
“I did point out that Jessica doesn’t represent our government,” Averil noted. “They didn’t care.”
“We’ve got a lot of rules about all that too,” I said. “Conflict of interest rules and such. But near as I can tell, they don’t.”
We had reached the ball, and Tanya squared up to it. “You didn’t ask your pals to hex my shot too, did you?”
I shook my head and smiled. “No. Should I?”
Janet said, “Repeat after me: ‘I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks!’”
Tanya looked puzzled.
The President guffawed. “Damn! Tanya, tell Corbin we need a staff . . . .” He stopped, looked at Janet, and said, “I’m sorry, what’s your specialty?””
“I’m a professor of early American Literature,” she said dryly. “In high demand, as you might imagine.”
“Yeah, I can see the problem,” the President replied. “But give it a run anyway, would you T? Don’t we need a staff literature professor?”
Tanya smiled and shook her head, then got serious about her shot again. She managed to get the ball onto the green, a bit further away from the hole than Averil’s shot.
Back to walking.
“Okay,” Bradley said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument – and my golf game – that I accept that the aliens are real, and your extrapolations concerning them are correct. The essence of their proposal is that they want to trade some technical know-how for weapons-grade uranium.”
“Always after me lucky charms,” the President said, shaking his head.
“Magically delicious, after a manner of speakin,’” Janet agreed.
The Secretary eyed Janet and his superior balefully. “Allowing you two within shouting distance of each other was clearly a mistake!”
“When you lose your laugh, you lose your footing, Jack,” the President scolded.
“I’ll worry about my footing if I’m crazy enough to take up ice climbing,” Bradley retorted. “Meanwhile . . . there are some things we probably should figure out before we consider hawking our wares in the bazaar.”
“Like whether it makes any sense to give some of the most dangerous material on the planet to aliens we don’t begin to understand,” said Colonel Kurtz.
Aguia shook his head. “As we’ve just established, they don’t need nuclear weapons to destroy us.”
“Well, maybe they want to sell them to someone who does need them?” She sounded like she was playing devil’s advocate.
Aguia countered easily. “Given their technical sophistication – at least some of which they appear willing to barter – why would they need any additional trade goods?”
Bradley scratched his head. “Katherine, when was the last time we enriched any uranium to weapons grade?”
“1992,” she answered promptly. “We’re still working off our Cold War stockpile, from back when we maintained tens of thousands of warheads. Most of them were decommissioned under the START treaties.”
“And we have a program for transferring some of that stockpile to civilian use, don’t we?” the President asked.
Kurtz nodded. “Yes. After it’s been blended so that it’s no longer weapons-grade. For use in the manufacture of fuel rods for power plants.”
“That might give us the legal authority to make the transfer. Tanya, make a note to ask Toni about that.”
“Tony Stertt?” Tanya asked.
“No, wrong ‘Tony.’ I don’t want to ship this to OLC – at least not yet.”
“The downside of using first names,” Bradley drawled, “Is that your administration has more Tony's than Hamilton.”
“Do you mean Toni Shakon, in the White House Counsel’s office?” Tanya asked.
“That’s the one,” the President replied. “She’s razor sharp and very flexible . . . like a nice concertina wire. Just what we’ll need here.”
“Shakon, not Stertt. Got it.” Tanya didn’t look happy. “But . . . It doesn’t matter if you get a legal opinion, you know. This gets out, the House’ll impeach you. You know they will.”
“You talk to Mr. Corbin about that?” the President inquired with a smile.
“I did, sir.” Tanya blushed. “Tom. Sorry.”
“And what did the house Prophet have to say about it?”
She shrugged, helplessly. “That they’re going to impeach you anyway, they just hadn’t settled on an excuse. Because that's what their voters want.”
Janet said, “They're gonna nail ya no matter what you do, so you might as well have a good time?”
“That’s it, sure enough,” The President said approvingly. He gave Tanya’s shoulder a companionable squeeze. “I know politics is your job, T, but we’re going to table that part of the discussion. I worked seventy-one years for the chance to fly in the fancy plane and have the weird-shaped office. Handling hot potatoes isn’t part of the job. It is the job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s Sir Tom, to you, Tanya,” the President said as he walked onto the green near where Averil’s shot had landed. “And don’t look so glum. We’ll be fine.” He looked at Aguia. “What do you think, Stanley?”
The tall man pondered the question carefully. Finally he said, “The hybrid putter with your cross-handed grip.”
“Stanley?” Bradley asked. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he was asking about trading uranium.”
“Really?” Aguia looked skeptical.
The President laughed. “Actually, I was asking about the shot. First things first, you know. I need to read the course.”
“And I need to read the room,” the Secretary snorted.
The President got down on the grass in an apparent effort to determine whether there were imperfections that might interfere with the trajectory of his putt. Once he was satisfied, he said, “I wonder whether there’s anything else I should do while I’m down here, since getting up and down is such a pain in the ass!”
“Or the right knee, if I remember right,” Aguia said.
“Yeah, that too.”
Tanya came over and lent him a hand.
He lined up his shot carefully, and his swing appeared to be precise. The ball made a bee-line for the hole and dropped right in. “Happy days are here again,” he said, smiling. Then he looked at me. “I’m guessing you don’t have trouble getting up and down any more, do you?”
“No. I can’t say I miss that part,” I replied honestly.
“The report I got covered what you said had happened to you, but not why. Did the aliens explain it?”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “It’s a bit embarrassing. Actually, it’s very embarrassing. But . . . the aliens found me while I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, just after the semester ended. I was . . . honestly. I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. Used up. Our dean is always promoting the younger faculty. Particularly the young, good-looking ones. I didn’t fit the profile. So when the aliens asked if I’d speak for them, I said no one would listen. I suggested they find someone who was young and good-looking. But they apparently were short on time, so instead they just shot me with something that turned me into what I’d described.”
“And changed your gender?” Colonel Kurtz sounded curious.
Janet decided to spare me the indignity of having to explain.
Well. Sort of spare me, anyway.
“That’s where it gets really funny,” she said. “The aliens – bein’ alien an’ all – wouldn’t know an attractive variant of homo sapiens from a sock puppet. So they ask her – him, at the time – and he tells ’em to check out People Magazine!”
“People!” Averil exclaimed.
Colonel Kurt had both hands attempting to cover her surprised – and amused – expression. Unsuccessfully.
Tanya was gaping. “But that’s just a . . . Oh!!!”
“Right,” Janet said. “Oh.”
The laughter was widespread; even the ascetic Aguia joined in. But he recovered first. “I assume, based on what you said, that they simply didn’t have any reason to think a gender shift would be significant?”
I nodded, relieved to be able to move the conversation away from my own circumstances. “Right. It’s a shift they must make numerous times over their long lifespans. And because each of them performs both biological roles at different times, the cultural freight surrounding gender probably doesn't exist – or if it does, it’s transitory.”
“I expect wisecracks about PMS would be rarer, and a whole lot funnier, if everyone had to deal with it,” Janet observed.
Averil was smiling slightly. “I was thinking the same thing, Janet, but I wasn’t going to say it.”
Janet grinned back. “There are some advantages to bein’ a free agent!”
“The pay kinda sucks, though,” the President responded.
“Point,” Janet said. “But what else is new?”
Bradley lined up his putt, then gave me a look. “Do I get a fair shot?”
“Now, how could I prevent you, standing over here and all?”
He glowered.
I gave him my most innocent smile. I’d been practicing it.
“Witch!” he said. “Fine! I frickin’ do believe in spooks!”
I dramatically held my delicately upturned nose with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and shook it back and forth.
“There’s s’posed to be a sound effect when you twitch your nose,” Janet said, then demonstrated.
“Yeah, but remember – the aliens aren’t listening right now.” I looked at the Defense Secretary. “Try it now.”
He was as careful as the President had been, and his shot was straight and unobstructed.
He still missed.
“Rat farts!” he exclaimed, disgusted.
We were still discussing the merits and demerits of providing aliens with U-235 when we got to the seventh hole. I noticed that Dr. Livingston had gotten more and more quiet as the discussion went on. During a lull as Tanya was lining up a drive, I asked her if something was wrong.
“I’m just starting to wonder,” she replied sotto voce, “whether we’re ever going to get around to talking about the other side of the equation.”
The President turned back to where we were standing. “I figured we’d better pander to the Praetorians first. They get titchy if you don’t.”
“You must have acute hearing,” I said to him.
“I’m not big on jewelry,” he replied. “Though to all things, Marianne is the exception.”
“Score one for Tom,” Janet said with a smile.
“Why thank you, Janet!” The President smiled like he’d just killed an eagle.
Or whatever they call it when you get the golf ball to go into the hole by the pole with one shot.
Tanya hit her ball squarely and it flew down the fairway. She seemed pleased, though no eagles were slain.
As we began to walk to where the balls had landed, the President said, “So what about it? Have we finished with our consideration of the security concerns, for now at least?”
Bradley chewed on his lip for a bit before nodding reluctantly. “I tell you, Tom, I was pretty skeptical. But I’m convinced” – he looked at me – “that the aliens exist. And Old Brains here,” he nodded at Aguia, “has convinced me that the acquisition of U-235 wouldn’t actually increase their capacity to hurt us. Those are the big-ticket items, from my perspective.”
Colonel Kurtz cautioned, “There’s still the possibility that they’ll want us to give them so much of our stockpile that it would adversely affect our deterrence posture with respect to our traditional, terrestrial, adversaries.”
“Possible,” said Aguia, “and we’ll have to find out. But honestly, I think that’s unlikely.”
“Because?” Again, Bradley mostly sounded curious.
“From everything Jessica and Janet have told us, they’re very technologically advanced. But, physics is still physics. The '235' in weapons-grade uranium refers to its nuclear mass. If they intend to load it aboard their spaceship – or tow it, or attach it to the hull – it won’t take a whole lot of it to add substantial mass. Which will affect both their acceleration and deceleration, possibly create asymmetrical stress points on the hull, maybe other engineering or navigational complications as well. Perhaps they’ve developed fixes for all of that, or maybe their ship is incredibly large. But my guess is that the ask will be something we can live with.”
Colonel Kurtz was smiling. “Old Brains,” she said fondly.
“Why Old Brains?” I asked. The gentleman seemed to inspire both affection and deference.
“Because it turned out I was better at analyzing improbable threats than fighting actual wars,” Aguia responded with a self-deprecating smile.
“Stanley’s too modest,” the President said. “Jack and Katherine are both West Pointers. So was my son Declan. Stanley was the hardest instructor there. But for the good students, he was also their favorite. Taught them all how to think. When he retired three years ago, he was probably the least decorated – but most admired – two-star in any branch of the military.”
“So – the very model of a modern major general.” Janet, naturally.
The President beamed. “I let that ball catch a ridiculous amount of the strike zone. I’d have been disappointed if you whiffed it, Janet!”
She performed an exaggerated curtsy, looking insufferably pleased with herself.
The President looked at each of his advisors and was apparently satisfied. “Alright,” he said, “Let me see if I can match Tanya’s drive, here, then let’s talk about what Averil is calling the other side of the equation.”
He actually managed to power the ball further than Tanya – indeed, it even made it to the green. “Best shot I’ve had all day!” he said.
Back to walking.
“Alright Averil,” the President said. “I’m in a good mood now. So tell me. I assume it cost the taxpayers of this great nation a bit of lucre to enrich uranium. No doubt I’ll get the exact numbers later, but I’ll assume for the sake of our discussion that it falls somewhere between a stinking heap and a crapload. Is what the aliens are offering really worth it?”
The Science Advisor nodded thoughtfully. “With a few important caveats, yes. In fact, it would be the best deal since colonists allegedly acquired Manhattan for beads.”
“I had an instructor who used to advise putting the caveats before the horseshit,” Bradley said, pointedly looking up at the sky. “Not that his saying applies in the present instance, of course.”
“Oh, of course not!” Aguia said with a smile.
Averil laughed. “I’ll start with the caveats then, but they’re straightforward. We don’t know the materials that are used in the battery, whether they are readily available, or what they cost, nor do we know whether we can manufacture it. The aliens have given us their assurances on each of those points. But, however much Jessica – or even you, Tom – would like to simply take all that on faith, it would be better to have confirmation before transferring anything valuable.”
“Trust, but verify?” the President asked.
“Right,” she answered. “I mean, listen, we’d probably learn a tremendous amount even if those caveats weren't met. But no question, it’d be a different deal.”
“Jessica, did the aliens say anything about sequencing the transaction?” the President inquired.
“We didn’t really get to the negotiating stage,” I said. “Since I had to get to the right people before we could.”
“Looks like it’s your lucky day.” The President looked at his advisors. “Anything else on the caveats? No? Alright then. Why do we care about a new and improved Energizer Bunny?”
“The case for it is compelling just as a matter of economics,” the Science Advisor said. “The amount of energy that is lost just through the process of transmission is enormous. But what takes this from being simply an incredibly big deal to being a complete game changer is climate change.”
“You’ve still got to generate all the power you’ll be storing,” Bradley cautioned. “So you still get the greenhouse gas emissions, don’t you?”
“The ramp-up to renewables is much, much faster with an efficient power storage tech, though,” Averil countered. “Clean energy technology is cost competitive right now in many parts of the country, but it’s uneven. Solar arrays in desert areas are more efficient than in, say, Minnesota. And even in the desert, the sun doesn’t always shine. The wind doesn’t always blow. But if we could harvest solar and wind power where and when it was most efficient, then store and transport it safely, efficiently and easily . . . . You see what a difference that makes? And that’s not even getting into the fact that this technology would solve one of the toughest nuts to crack, which is accelerating the transition to clean transportation.”
“Okay,” the President said. “But why that technology? Shouldn’t we shoot for, I don’t know? Fusion power? Or maybe something in the biomedical line.”
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Kurtz said, pointing a thumb in my direction and smiling.
“Exactly!” Taryn replied. “It seems we’re kind of going down this track in a hurry. Shouldn’t we think a bit more about our ask?”
One by one, I found all eyes were on me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “When they showed up, a few weeks ago, it was just Janet and me, okay? A couple old humanities professors at a small college. No one else believed what had happened. My own damned doctor wouldn’t believe it. I mean, to the point where he called the police. We needed something that would get us a hearing, that they would be willing to make. So . . . I came up with the battery idea.”
They were all still looking at me, and I couldn’t read their expressions. “We thought about the type of shot I got . . . but even if they’d give us that, which I doubt, widespread use would cause tremendous population problems. . . . Dammit. I’m a linguist, not a scientist! We did the best we could!”
The President held up a hand to stop me. “Jessica, you did fine. Averil here thinks you did better than fine. I’m really just trying to determine whether it’s worth considering other alternatives.”
Don't shade the truth, I thought, remembering Averil’s admonition.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But what they’ve told me is that we’ve got six days to work out a deal. And . . . they won’t trade just anything. They have something like the Prime Directive from the old Star Trek show. We had to convince them that we might get something like the battery tech sometime in the next fifty years before they would put that on the table.”
“The Prime Directive? Really?” The President looked both surprised and displeased.
“Fascinating,” said Aguia.
“What happens if we can’t get it done in six days?” Bradley asked. “Do they just go home? Do they try to deal with someone else?”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “They won’t tell me. And I expect Justin Abel is behind that.”
“Just enable what?” Kurtz looked puzzled.
“Sorry. Abel’s their lawyer. He’s advising them on the negotiations. And, I have no doubt, telling them they should leave us guessing what they’ll do if we can’t get it done.”
“Where did they find a lawyer?” Kurtz asked.
“How could they avoid it?” Bradley responded. “From what I’ve seen, you can’t take a leak in this town without pissing on one. If you’ll excuse my French.”
“I’m afraid that’s our fault, too,” I said. “We asked a lawyer to analyze the scope of their Prime Directive. They took a shine to him.”
“Lawyers and aliens?” Bradley shook his head sadly. “That’s got to be even worse than Cowboys and Aliens.”
“Nothing could be worse than Cowboys and Aliens!” Tanya shuddered in horror.
The President grinned. “Nothing? Oh, Tanya! You forgot that our story has politicians, too.”
“Shysters and termites and crooks, oh my!” Janet quipped.
When the laughter subsided, Averil said, “Whether the lawyer’s behind it or not, I guess we should assume the deadline’s real.”
Bradley nodded. “Of my options, I’m sure we’d rather have them leave altogether than work out some shady deal with Russia . . . or some even less savory operators, if you can imagine such a thing. But that wouldn’t be in our control.”
“Then it sounds to me like uranium for the battery tech is the only deal that can be done in the time we’ve got,” the President mused. “Go or no go? What do you think, Stanley?”
“The Fairway Wood. Definitely.”
To be continued. Definitely.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 15: The Menagerie
Another morning, another unfamiliar bed. I took a minute getting myself oriented to person, place and time. I was in a bedroom, in a safehouse, somewhere in Northern Virginia. It was . . . 7:00 am.
But who the hell am I today?
I’m Jessica James, née Wainwright, formerly a distinguished professor. Currently moonlighting as a cross between Henry Kissenger (but without the war crimes!) and Emma Watson (without the talent). Job description includes talking with space aliens, getting shot and meeting with the President.
Try putting that on a resume.
I wasn’t sure when they would want us today, so I knew I should get up. Get myself ready . . . for whatever. The flurry of orders the President had issued at the end of yesterday’s golf game set the wheels turning. A handful of high-level aides would meet today to hash out a proposal that I could take to the aliens. They might want us there. Prolly.
I should be energetic, but I found myself dreading another day of battle with the leviathan bureaucracy. It seemed like each new person brought into the mix had to be individually convinced that the aliens are real and that their desire to acquire weapons-grade uranium was not a threat. It was like trying to cross a tar pit using the breast stroke.
But whoever had selected the finishings in the bedroom had chosen a greige-on-greige color scheme that was guaranteed to make me want to be elsewhere. Almost any else-where. So I hauled myself out of bed, wrapped myself in a bathrobe I purchased from our DC hotel before we checked out, and went in search of coffee.
Turning into the kitchen doorway, I had a collision with a large, solid, very male body that was coming out. “Ooof!!!” I rocked back, teetering.
“So sorry, Miss!” He had a deep voice and his hands were quick enough to steady me before I fell.
“Th-thanks,” I stuttered. I had completely forgotten that our safe house not only came with very up-to-date security features – it had the most old-fashioned sort as well. “My fault!”
“Are you alright?” He had nice eyes, kind of a golden brown.
“I’m fine, thanks . . . Mr. Walters, isn’t it?” I said. “Really, just surprised. I forgot we weren’t alone.”
He smiled, releasing my arm. “Please, call me Mitt. Let me get you a cup of coffee, anyhow. . . . I just made a fresh pot.”
“That would be fabulous, thanks!” I watched as he moved across the kitchen with a kind of cat-like grace. “Quiet night, I hope?” I asked.
He answered while he was pouring. “Quiet here; quiet out there. All good, I think. Got a nice quiet day planned?”
“You weren’t told?” I was surprised.
“Nope. I almost never am. I assume they figure it’s all ‘need to know,’ and I don’t, or something. My boss says ‘guard’ and I guard, she says ‘drive’ and I drive.”
“That sounds . . . frustrating.” I said, sympathetically.
Surprisingly, he broke into a broad smile. “Not remotely. After a few jobs, I realized that I could make up my own stories about the people I was guarding, and they’d almost certainly be more interesting than the truth.
“Like one guy I was protecting here – same house – for six weeks. Almost never said a word. Scary looking, you know what I’m saying? Right down to the patch over one eye. I told myself he was a mob enforcer turned whistleblower, whose testimony had brought down someone like Gotti, and the family was out for blood. I found out later he was an accountant being questioned in a wire fraud case. Not bad, see, but my story was a lot better.”
“And the eye patch?” I asked, intrigued.
“He’d had cataract surgery and had complications with the recovery.”
We laughed.
I liked his imaginative approach. “So what story have you made up for me and Janet? Why do we need a four-person security detail?”
“You are the beautiful daughter and sole heir of the beloved King of Erewhon, who was done in by his dastardly brother. Your colleague is the King’s sister. You escaped your evil uncle by disguising yourselves as ugly American tourists, which immediately caused you to be packed away on the first flight out of the country . . . .”
I dissolved into a fit of laughter.
“But wait, there’s more!” He grinned. “Anyway – you’ve got to admit, it makes a good story. And almost certainly more interesting, more dangerous, and stranger than the truth!”
“Oh certainly.” Janet stood in the doorway, a sardonic smile on her lips. “You got any of that coffee for the late King’s distraught sister?”
“You don’t really look all that distraught,” I observed.
“’Course I am,” she responded indignantly. “Just not about my royal brother. He was a prick. Well, both of ’em were, I guess. But I’m definitely distraught – or, at least distressed – that you have coffee and I don’t.”
I stuck my nose in the air. “Hey, being a princess has its privileges!”
“Don’t get your tiara in a wad, highness,” she warned. “It'll literally mess up your head.”
Mitt got Janet some coffee.
She opened the fridge and lightened her cup with a little milk. “I heard you askin’ Jessica about the plan for the day. After we’ve gotten showered and dressed, I think they’re gonna want us back downtown.”
“So what’s happening today?” Mitt asked. “Are you doing the grand jury thing? Federal court?”
I shook my head. “No, no court. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing we’ll have to go to the EEOB.”
Mitt said, “No worries. Just give us twenty minutes’ notice or so; there’s a protocol for getting in and getting out safely.”
I assured him that we would, then Janet and I went to get ourselves ready for the day.
The trip back to D.C. was a very different experience. Janet and I were in the back seat of yet another black SUV with darkly tinted windows. Mitt was driving and his partner Vic was riding shotgun. Vic was responsible for communicating with the rest of the security team. It was a duty he evidently took very seriously, because they never stopped talking.
“We’re in motion, over,” Vic said into his microphone.
“In the pipe, five by five, Vic.”
“What’s your twenty, Gordo?” Vic responded.
“Five klicks out, where the access road hits the Bobby Lee,” Gordo’s voice responded.
“You mean, the Langston?” a new voice interjected.
Vic responded, “Rog, good of you to join us. Don’t go confusing the Good Ol’ Boy, now! You in place?”
“I hear ya Vic,” Rog responded. “At the garage, per the mission brief.”
“Well, un-ass, bro. Mitty here wants you half a klick back on our six once we’re on the Lee. Confirm.”
“Roger.”
“No, Doombass, I’m Vic. You’re Roger!”
“What’s your vector, Victor?” Janet asked, rhetorically.
It was a long trip into the City. A mere grammarian would have been appalled. As a linguist, I found it all rather charming.
* * * * *
Another day, another meeting.
We were, as expected, back in the EEOB. The conference room was larger, but less ornate, than the one we had been in the night before last. It even had a sideboard stocked with coffee, a few beverages, and the sort of snacks institutions offer to keep employees working, without making them feel in the least coddled, comfortable, or irreplaceable. I passed.
Luther Corbin was presiding, and most of the senior leadership of the Department of Energy, including the Secretary himself, were present. Secretary Britt was flanked by DOE General Counsel Gillian Dunlop on his left, and two undersecretaries – Mrs. Hix (Nuclear Security) and Mr. Squires (Science and Innovation) on his right. Near as I could tell, they got along like a big family.
The Plantagenets, maybe. Or possibly the Donners.
The President’s Science Advisor, Dr. Livingston, gave us a smile as we entered. Colonel Kurtz was also present for the NSA staff, along with Tanya Rodriguez-Tolland, who had partnered the Secretary of Defense during the President’s golf game. The final attendee was the woman President Taryn had compared to concertina wire: Assistant White House Counsel Toni Shakon.
“Ms. James. Professor Seldon. Thank you for joining us,” Corbin rumbled, waving us to a pair of empty seats. He made the introductions, which is how I ended up knowing last names and titles for the DOE contingent, but (with one exception), not their first names. One of the few things the bureaucracy appeared to agree on was that Corbin liked his formality.
“What we are trying to determine, if I may cut through the last few minutes of spirited discussion,” he continued, “is how much U-235 to offer in exchange for the battery technology. Mr. Squires, could you give us a brief – and, if you would, please, invective-free – summary of your view?”
Squires was average in every physical dimension: height, weight, hair color, eye color. He would make a good spy: no one would remember anything distinctive about him.
Until he started talking, of course. He was extremely intense and spoke unusually fast, with an accent that stamped him as a native of New York City. No Langley for you after all, I thought.
“We had our Chief Economist look at this last night; all of you should’ve received his preliminary report. From a pure value perspective, we could trade away the whole frickin’ stockpile and still come out ahead. A battery technology that hits the metrics Professor Grimm certified is literally priceless. We’re not talking ‘billions with a b,’ we’re talking trillions.”
“‘Trillions’ is still a price,” the Secretary said in a repressive tone.
“What?” Squires’ reply was, I thought, a masterful use of the word as an interjection – in this case, an interjection that none-too-subtly suggested that his superior was a moron.
The Secretary was probably the only person in the room to miss the implication and treat the Undersecretary’s usage as a genuine question in which the only voiced element is a pronoun. “I said,” he explained patiently, “that trillions is a price, so it’s not literally priceless.”
I decided I wasn’t going to be a potted plant for yet another meeting where people felt compelled, for whatever reason, to act like idiots. “In the absence of a limiting modifier, ‘trillions’ is inherently indeterminate, which makes it potentially infinite. Thus, literally priceless could be correct.”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, young woman!” the Secretary snapped.
“At the risk of sounding pompous,” I replied, “I’m the Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Gryphon College. While semantics, as a sub-field, has never interested me much, I’ve got more expertise than almost anyone who didn't devote their postgraduate work to it. Trust me on this one.”
Janet broke the brief silence that followed my pronouncement. “Don’t imagine a book can’t be instructive, just ’cuz the dust jacket looks like a Harlequin Romance.”
Kurtz tried, but she couldn’t keep from laughing. Which proved to be almost as contagious as vomiting on a plane.
Even Corbin smiled. But he was shrewd enough to use the tension-breaker to advantage. Rapping his knuckles on the table, he said, “Thank you for that reminder. Looks are certainly deceptive, at least in this particular instance. Now, Mr. Secretary, even if you disagree that the technology is literally priceless, do you take issue with your Chief Economist's view that the value is, at the very least, extremely high – multiple trillions?”
“To the world economy, and over a period of years,” the Secretary responded. “But on the other side of the ledger, we have an asset with a present value that belongs to the United States government. Apples and oranges.”
“I see,” Corbin said. “Mrs. Hix, what’s the commercial value of our U-235 stockpile?”
“We, ah, don’t actually think of it in those terms, Mr. Corbin.”
“What’s ‘we?’” Secretary Britt complained. “I think of it in those terms. Don’t I count? Last I checked, I’m in charge of the agency!”
“No one’s questioning that, Mr. Secretary,” Corbin said, “but the economist’s view . . . .”
Britt did not allow him to finish. “I assure you, Mr Corbin, that you can’t run a large law firm, as I did for many years, without understanding economics!”
“Indeed,” Corbin responded, noncommittally. “Mrs. Hix . . . .”
Britt interrupted again. “I’m the Secretary, Mr. Corbin. You know – the boss. The guy in charge. When I’m in the room, I speak for the Department!”
“Have you read your Chief Economist’s report, Mister Secretary?” Corben’s voice remained pleasant, but his expression was dangerous.
“Yes! I mean, not every detail. It dropped on my desk at 7:00 a.m. But the Executive Summary, fully, and the detail as required. You want more, you need to provide a reasonable timeframe. All of this is being rushed in a ridiculous way.”
“Ask me for anything but time, Mr. Secretary. Appendix C, if my memory has not failed me completely, summarized the economics of the Blended Low Enrichment Uranium Program. Did you review it?” Corbin’s eyes were growing more narrow.
“No, I didn’t read appendices to a report I was given just hours ago! I’m the Secretary, not a secretary, for Chrissake!”
“Mrs. Hix, did you, by any chance, review Appendix C?” Corbin asked.
Britt leaned forward, his face red. “What part of ‘I speak for the Department’ don’t you understand, Corbin?”
“Perhaps it was the part where you assumed that I gave a damn!” Corbin barked. “I’m running this meeting, Mister Secretary, and I will call on those who have read enough to have something useful to contribute!” He gave Tanya a meaningful look, and she slipped out of the conference room.
Britt folded his arms across his chest and looked petulantly rebellious. On anyone over twelve, the expression was absurd.
Without ceasing to glare at Britt, Corbin said, “Colonel Kurtz, since the Energy Secretary has silenced his estimable subordinates, perhaps you could discuss Appendix C?”
“Of course, Mr. Corbin,” the NSA staffer responded smoothly. “The Department spends billions on the BLEU program, and considers it a huge success, from both a security standpoint and a budgetary standpoint.”
“We spend billions, and consider it a budgetary success? That does sound like Washington, D.C. logic, if ever I have heard it! Could you elaborate on the reasoning behind that startling conclusion, Colonel?” Corbin’s incredulity was theatrical.
“Because every pound of U-235 that’s down-blended into low-enriched uranium is a pound that we aren’t paying to store, monitor and guard. All of which are very expensive. The BLEU program saves us about two dollars for each dollar spent.”
“But suppose, Colonel, that instead of having to spend billions to down-blend it, we were able to send it out of the solar system, permanently and at no cost to the taxpayers?”
“That would be ideal, from a fiscal perspective,” Kurtz responded.
“That’s all very well,” Britt snapped, “but . . . .”
“Mr. Secretary?” Tanya poked her head back in the Conference Room. “The President is on a secure line for you.”
“We’ll take a few minutes,” Britt said, standing and striding toward the door. “I should be right back.” The door closed behind him.
“I am, sadly, a bit pressed for time today,” Corbin said with a regretful shake of his head. “Though it surely pains me to do so, I think we shall have to proceed without the Secretary. Mrs. Hix, anything to add to Colonel Kurtz’s summary? Since Secretary Britt is no longer in the room to speak for the Department?”
“I don’t disagree with Colonel Kurtz or the Chief Economist, Mr. Corbin,” the woman said carefully. “But I would note, as a counterpoint, that the stockpile represents potential value, and it cost the taxpayers in years past a great deal of money to create it.”
“Mr. Corbin? May I ask a question of the Undersecretary?” I felt all eyes on me, the outsider.
“Go ahead . . . Professor,” Corbin said, stressing my qualifications.
Which weren’t really relevant to our present discussion, but . . . what the hell. I was in the room. “Mrs. Hix, don’t you think the people of the United States got what they paid for?”
“I’m afraid I’m not following you, Professor James,” she replied, taking her cue from Corbin on the honorific.
“I know it doesn’t look like it, but I grew up during the Cold War. Looking around the table, I’d guess that’s true of most of you, to one degree or another. I memorized parts of President Kennedy’s inaugural address when I was in high school. I bet some of you did too. Do you remember? ‘We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.’” I looked around the room. Looked at each face.
They remembered.
“All the money we spent enriching uranium to make tens of thousands of warheads . . . that was just part of the price we decided . . . we resolved . . . to bear,” I said quietly. “And we got exactly what we paid for. We’re still here, we’re still free, and those weapons are now surplus. A Cold War dream come true. My opinion, as one of the citizens who paid some of those taxes . . . . That was a pretty damned good return on our investment.”
The room was quiet.
“So say we all,” Janet said softly.
Mrs. Hix sat up straight. “Thank you for that, Professor. Your point’s well-taken – though I warn you, not everyone will see it that way.”
“Honestly,” Mr. Squires added, “Even putting the Professor’s excellent point aside, the tax revenue from increased economic activity and efficiency this new technology will unlock will dwarf any economic value we might assign to the government’s U-235 stockpile.”
“So what would you offer, Mr. Squires?” Corbin inquired.
“Me? I’d give ’em the whole steaming pile. Put a frickin’ bow on it. Save us money and effort.”
Mrs. Hix looked ill. “That’s nuts!”
Corbin looked at Hix. “How much is in the stockpile, anyway?”
“Almost six hundred metric tons are technically surplus,” she responded. “Most is reserved for the power plants of the nuclear navy, and another chunk is reserved for NASA. But we have around ninety tons that could go into the BLEU Program at some point.”
“So give ’em that!” Squires exclaimed.
“Mr. Squires?” Colonel Kurtz gave him a cool look as she leaned forward. “The amount of fissile material used in a nuclear weapon varies, but you can make one with as little as 32 pounds of HEU. You could make well over two thousand nuclear weapons with ninety tons – more than every country in the world combined, if you take us and Russia out of the equation.”
“But Colonel, no one will be making bombs out of this material,” Squires said, frustrated. “Our adversaries won’t be able to, and we don’t intend to. We’re paying billions – literally billions, and I frickin’ do mean literally – to have it diluted and sent to the TVA to power frickin’ toasters in frickin’ Chattanooga!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Mrs. Hix said with a smile.
Corbin wrapped his knuckles on the table . . . again. “All right, Mrs. Hix . . . Colonel Kurtz . . . How much would you put on the table?”
“Don’t we need to decide whether we have authority to put anything on the table?” This question came from DOE’s General Counsel. “I have real doubts about that, let me tell you!”
“And I’ve got real doubts about your doubts,” Toni Shakon said. “But . . . and I hate to do this . . . I think we need to ask our visiting professors to step out if we’re going to discuss legal advice.”
“We can talk about our nuclear stockpile around them, but God forbid we touch upon legal advice?” Dr. Livingston looked amused.
“Truth is, we haven’t covered anything you couldn’t find on Wikipedia,” Colonel Kurtz responded. “Though, I do think Ms. Shakon raises a valid question.” Kurtz looked at me directly. “Who do you represent, Professor James?”
“Legally? Damned if I know,” I responded. “I’m not a lawyer, for which I’m quite grateful – no offense to anyone present. I’m just trying to facilitate a deal that will greatly benefit both sides.”
“But you would agree, would you not, that you do not represent the U.S. government?” Shakon pressed.
I shrugged. “Except that the aliens have said they’ll only talk to me, so I guess I’ll need to present the government’s offer to them – assuming you ever decide to make one. Won’t I be representing you in that circumstance?”
Shakon shook her head in the negative. “No more than a neutral mediator does, when she passes along proposals and counter proposals.”
“Jessica,” Dr. Livingston said, pointedly breaching Corbin’s preference for formality, “‘neutral’ isn’t quite right either, is it? I had the sense that the aliens expect something more from you than that. Don’t they?”
“You were there when they said they’d only talk to me. I haven’t heard more than that.” But my words, while true, didn’t sound convincing, even to me.
“They said they have doubts about humanity – about our species. But they trust you. Do they expect you to represent . . . all of us?” Livingston asked.
“I don’t know any more than you do. Really. . . . But . . . yes. That’s my sense, too.”
“Do you view yourself as representing humanity in general?” Shakon asked, her eyes sharp.
I tried to come up with a response that didn’t sound fatuous.
Ms. Dunlop drawled, “I’m not a linguist, for which I’m quite grateful. No offense to anyone present. But I did kind of think they’d be quicker with, you know . . . words.”
Corbin intervened. “Let’s keep it civil, people.” He gave me a look that was at once kindly, but measuring. “I’m sorry, Professor, but we do need to know who you, at least, think you’re representing.”
I sighed. “It’s a fair question. And I know it sounds crazy and puffed up. And, God help me, earnest. I didn’t ask for it, but given how the aliens have structured the discussion, I do feel a responsibility to do this right, for all of humanity. Not just for my own country.”
“Oh, so you’re here to save the world? That’s nice.” Dunlop’s sarcasm stung. “Just excuse us while we try to protect our country – and yours!”
Corbin removed his glasses and began polishing them. “Enough, counselor.”
“But . . . .”
He stopped her with a raised hand. “I said, enough.” He turned his attention to me. “I understand your position, Professor. And I apreciate your honesty. But I think Ms. Shakon is right. We’ll need to have some internal discussions that you aren’t part of – either of you – to formulate the USG’s negotiating stance. You understand?”
Janet smiled. “You mean we won’t get to sit in on all of these meetin’s? Well, damn. Throw me into that briar patch!”
I smiled. “I understand, sir . . . and I agree with you. But I’ll probably need to get a pretty in-depth briefing on your offer – if you make one – before I take it to the aliens.”
“Of course,” Corbin assured. “And we may have questions for you while we’re meeting, too. If you’ll stick around, we can find an office to park you in while we continue our discussions.”
I looked at Janet.
She shrugged. “Sure. Might give us a deck of cards, though. I’m guessin’ that you’re gonna be a while.”
“I’ve got a spare office in my suite,” Dr. Livingston offered.
Corbin nodded his thanks and looked at Tanya. “Can you help them find Dr. Livingston’s suite?”
She agreed.
We stood and moved to the door. It opened before we got there and Secretary Britt swept in. “Sorry, that took longer than I expected. We can resume.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Secretary,” I said. “We were just leaving.”
“Hasta la vista, ba-be,” Janet intoned.
“Leaving?” he asked, befuddled. “What’d I miss?”
* * * * *
“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed as we got ourselves out of the conference room and moving toward Averil’s office. “Where did they dredge up that . . . person, and how did he become a Cabinet Secretary?”
It was Tanya’s turn to sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s an old story. A rich lawyer gets involved in politics, runs a state organization, then gets involved nationally . . . and soon he’s sitting on a heap of IOUs. Everyone figured he’d be harmless . . . if he had a good deputy and a solid team. But . . . well . . . .”
Janet snorted. “An old story, for sure. ‘Stick close to your desks and never go to sea . . .’” Janet had a nice singing voice.
Tanya joined her light alto voice with Janet’s: “And you all may be the rulers of the Queen’s Navy!” Fortunately, they kept their voices low enough that the entire building didn’t turn out to see what was going on.
Tanya giggled. “You're not the first person to sing the First Lord’s Song after meeting Britt!”
“I’d say great minds think alike,” Janet replied, “but in this case the comparison doesn’t require much discernment. Maybe we could ask the aliens if they’ve got a pill for dingbat.”
We came to another door in another corridor, looking pretty much like all the rest of them. Tanya moved to open it.
I was hopelessly lost. “Anyone ever consider putting name plates on doors in this place?”
“No! That’s just what they’ll be expecting us to do!” Tanya said with a laugh.
“Bazinga!!! You are too young to know that one!” Janet was clearly both surprised and pleased.
“My folks were fans,” she said. “But truth is, I think it’s really just a way to separate the insiders from the outsiders. The people in the know, know. So if you don’t know, you don’t need to know, ya know?”
“No,” I said. “That’s . . . messed up.”
“I know,” Tanya grinned. “Ain’t it grand?”
Kara McDaniels, Dr. Livingston’s assistant, decided to park us in the Science Advisor’s conference room. I was starting to develop a real antipathy for conference rooms, even though this particular one was blissfully uninfected with squabbling bureaucrats.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked us. “Tea? Coffee?”
“Advil?” Janet said, hopefully.
“A few tons of weapons-grade uranium?” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do – for one of you, anyway!” She left.
Janet took a seat at the table. “Whoda thunk you'd be the one to get us kicked out of the meeting!”
“Sorry about that,” I offered.
She waved it off. “Don’t be. Can you believe I used to think, when we were listenin’ to all the windbags go at it durin’ faculty meetings all those years, that out in the real world, where decisions actually mattered, people were reasonable and rational?”
I laughed. “Me, too. Hearing Britt this morning, all I could think of was ‘Stump’ Peterson, back when he was still dean.”
“Yeah . . . and it always boils down to the same thing, doesn’t it?” Dropping her voice, she asked, “‘Am I the leader of the SweatHogs? Is the bear Catholic? Does a Pope live in the woods?’ I just thought – maybe wished – that things would be better here.”
McDaniels returned with a glass of water and a couple Advil. “Here you are,” she said, then slipped back out. Janet downed the pills and about half the glass of water.
“Headache?” I asked.
She nodded. “Had a bad night last night, I guess. And hearing all the bickering this morning didn’t help. I mean, look. Early American literature is my specialty, right? You don’t walk away from Hawthorne, Melville and Poe with a cheery view of human nature. But somehow, I’m still surprised.”
“So, are you looking forward to wrapping this up and going back? I asked.
“S’posed to be back a week from Monday. I’ve got a light semester – just one survey course and one advanced seminar – but . . . it’s not gonna happen, is it?”
I’d been looking out the window into the courtyard, which was, sadly, just as butt-ugly as the rest of the building. At least the architects of New Brutalism were trying to create something unattractive. Whoever designed this place just had no clue.
Janet’s response brought me quickly back to the present moment. “I keep hoping we’ll find a way to clear up suspicion about the disappearance of James Wainwright. I mean, this is all going to go public at some point, right?”
“I don’t know,” she responded. “And, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not sure I want to go back. These meetings have been frustratin’ as all hell, but . . . I feel like we’re makin’ a difference. Or at least, we’re tryin’ to. It’s like I suddenly woke up and remembered the great big world again. Turns out I missed it.”
“The academy looks a bit small when you step away from it, doesn’t it?” I asked, with sympathy.
She nodded, smiling ruefully. “It’s all right there in Hawthorne, natch. Like I’ve been teachin’ the yoots all these years. When you leave your own circle, you find out how truly insignificant your supposed achievements are.”
“Maybe it’s time for something else?” I suggested.
There was a rap on the door and McDaniels opened it again. Stanley Aguia stood behind her. “There’s someone here to see you,” she said.
“General Aguia! Please come in,” I said.
“I would be happy to,” he replied gravely. “But I hoped I might persuade you both to join me for a different sort of meeting.”
“‘Different’ would be good, I kid you not,” Janet said, with feeling. “Though, honestly, you kinda lost me at ‘meeting.’”
He smiled. “Would it help if I told you that two of the people at the meeting are Dave Grillo and Troi Harris?”
“Really!!?” The names appeared to revive Janet completely. “Hot damn, maybe somebody’s usin’ the brains they were born with! Come on, Jessica, I want to go to there! Wherever ‘there’ is.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not familiar with either name. Up ‘till a week or so ago, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics.”
Janet was shaking her head, a huge smile on her face. “Neither did they. They’re two of the most thoughtful writers of hard science fiction currently living!”
Aguia nodded. “Quite so. And we’ve also got a couple other experts who want to pick your brains too. Think of us as the President’s Council on the Unexpected. An informal group, naturally.”
Janet was practically shoving me out the door. “Finally, someone’s looking past the immediate decision!” she said.
I was happy to see her animated again;. And, I was curious about Aguia’s group. “You’ll let Dr. Livingston know where we are?” I asked her assistant.
Aguia took my elbow. “She knows, Doctor. She knows,” he said. “Averil texted me that you were available. She’d be in our meeting, if her presence wasn’t critical to the meeting you left.”
“If meetings generated energy rather than sucking it up like a big black hole, this building could supply power for the whole planet!” I groused.
We walked down yet another corridor of black-and-white marble tile, past more unlabeled doors, and up a staircase. I couldn’t tell one floor from the other.
As Aguia led us around the maze, he explained, “Most of Washington focuses on the needs of the moment. The problems we all know about. A small portion focuses on known unknowns – problems, or even opportunities, we know are possible and may come up, someday. There’s no structure for dealing with ‘unknown unknowns.’
“But they happen all the time. The world – or, today, the universe – is full of surprises. So we often bring in small groups of people with different backgrounds and expertise, who can look at issues from perspectives that official Washington won’t have. They are vetted and cleared in advance, so we don’t have to waste time with red tape. We don’t call on most of them often, but when we do we’re in a hurry.”
“And you’re in charge of this . . . network?” I asked.
He laughed. “‘In charge’ is too strong a term where these characters are involved. They don’t fit any mold. But, at the President’s request, I play a coordinating role.”
“Still generaling, I guess,” Janet said.
“Generals give orders, Professor,” he demurred. “I assure you, a catherd can, at most, suggest.”
“So what is today’s group focused on?” I asked. “Uranium, energy, or both?”
“Nothing so prosaic as U-235,” Aguia said. “The bigger point, as the President understood immediately, was the First Contact itself. For the first time in recorded history, we have confirmed contact with representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization. And based on what you’ve told us, we may have just days before they leave, and it could be centuries before any of their species return.”
We had reached the right place, and Aguia led us into a suite. Rather than another conference room, we were in a library. Like the rest of the building, it was overdone, over-decorated, and completely over-the-top – marble and wrought iron and rugs and chandeliers that shed a diffuse, golden light . . . But it was still a library, with books and comfortable chairs. For an academic, the sights and even smells of a library are at once comfortable and familiar.
I felt my whole body relax.
People were getting up from deep leather chairs set in a conversation area. Aguia said, “Please allow me to introduce our team. This imposing gentleman is Dave Grillo.” Imposing was right: Grillo was probably close to my old height, but must have weighed 300 pounds. Deep, dark eyes in a lively face.
Aguia continued his introductions “Professor Daichi Kurokawa, from the Sociology Department of the University of California at Los Angeles.” Younger than I would have expected – thirties, maybe. Bright, excited eyes under a shock of straight, blue-black hair.
“Kayla Cormier, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Johns Hopkins.” Immaculately coiffed snow white hair, porcelain skin and inquisitive cornflower blue eyes.
“And Troi Harris, author, adventurer and shameless self-promoter,” Aguia finished, prompting the short, athletic brunette woman in question to stick her tongue out at the tall general.
Then Aguia said, “Everyone, this is Professor Janet Seldon and Jessica James, formerly Professor James Wainwright, both of the Humanities Department of Gryphon College in Northampton, Massachusetts.” He waved everyone to their seats. “There are more people who should be here, and I dearly wish they could join us, given the subject matter of this particular unexpected event. But we’re operating on extremely short notice.”
“Gentlemen in England, now abed, shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,” Harris said with a smile.
“King Henry shoulda left it there,” Janet replied, “’Cuz cheap or pricey, I’ve always thought the guys who missed out shouldn’t have to stand around holding their manhoods. I mean, really, guys?”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Harris laughed. “Good point!”
“Never mind all that!” Grillo’s voice was surprisingly high for someone so vast. “Tell us about the aliens!!!”
“How is their society organized!” Kurokawa was almost jumping out of his seat.
“What do they even look like?” Cormier inquired.
Aguia smiled. “Cats, you see? All in good time, everyone! If you could, Professor James. Tell us how all of this started. From the beginning.”
“Alright, Jessica,” said Janet. “Here’s your ‘call me Ishmael’ moment.”
“Like I need yet another name!” I took a deep breath. “Well, a few weeks ago, I was hiking the Appalachian Trail . . . .”
. . . To be continued. Literally.
Maximum Warp,
Chapter 16: In Theory
I didn’t get very far in my story before the questions and comments started flying; I couldn’t even keep up with who was saying what.
“I get Cronkite, but why Mary Tyler Moore’s shoes?”
“Not hers, necessarily. Mighta been Rhoda’s. Or even Phyllis!”
“I vote for Phyllis. Cloris Leachman was brilliant!”
“Wait – wasn’t Betty White on that show too?”
. . . .
“Holy shit, if I wrote that, all the reality police on my blog would explode. I mean, megaton explode!!!”
“Worse than they did after you wrote that EVA scene in “Covenant Ark?”
“Much worse!!!”
“So hit ’em. Worked for Bradbury.”
“He was only dealing with one punk kid - I’ve got an army of them!”
“Let me get my violin!”
. . . .
“‘Ah Jeez’ and ‘Old Scudder?’”
“Yes . . . impossible – but only an alien or a machine would use both. Unironically, at least.”
“You did!”
“When?”
“Just now!”
. . . .
“The Enterprise? Seriously? Like in Galaxy Quest?”
“We did think of that. But, no, they seem to understand that Star Trek wasn’t real.”
“What do you mean, not real!”
“Heretic!”
. . . .
“SIRI? And they got it to work?”
“They could earn a Nobel for that all by itself!”
“And a lawsuit from Apple.”
“Good luck serving that writ of summons!”
. . . .
“Millions of years older than Earth? That’s . . . wow. I can’t overstate how significant that could be.”
“Or not; the creation of life forms might have taken longer.”
Grillo and Kurowkawa were the most animated; Cormier asked numerous questions about alien biology that I could not answer, and was frustrated that I had no idea what the aliens actually looked like. Harris was very engaged during my description of my first meeting with the aliens aboard their ship, but kind of dropped out of the conversation when we turned to the discussion of my idea for a trade. She appeared to be lost in thought.
“So whatever their battery tech is, they’re confident enough that we’ll get it within fifty years even if they don’t give it to us?” Grillo asked.
“Right,” I responded. “They took several days to reach that conclusion, and they devoted a chunk of resources to figuring out the state of all of our scientific studies on the issue, based on publicly-available data.”
“Suggests to me that we’re a lot closer to the theoretical limits on energy storage than I would have guessed – or might have liked,” he mused.
“But Professor Grimm indicated that this was a very significant advance, didn’t he?” Kurokawa countered.
“And that boy’s got a rep for significant advances,” Janet growled darkly.
“Sure, it’s a big advance,” Grillo said, “but I would have expected a spacefaring civilization to be – no joke – light years ahead of us on energy storage. Not fifty years.”
“Maybe their society doesn’t have the same drive towards ever-greater efficiency?” Kurokawa speculated. “Technological advances are always destabilizing. If their culture prizes stability . . . .”
“I should hate you, you know.” Harris was looking at me strangely. She clearly had not been paying attention to the conversation at all.
“Excuse me?” I asked, puzzled.
“Troi . . . .” Aguia began.
She waved him off. “I should. Really. You got it all. The full package. Not just female, but young . . . gorgeous. Hell, you can probably even have kids the old fashioned way. And all it took was one shot, and a thirty day transition. God!!! . . . I’da killed for that. A tenth of it.”
“Troi,” Aguia repeated, “It’s not her fault. She didn’t ask for it.”
“Makes it worse, in a way,” she replied. “I had to beg my parents to let me take the blockers, so I didn’t have to go through male puberty. Had to convince a host of doctors and shrinks. Fight every step of the way . . . she didn’t even have to ask.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper.
I didn’t know what to say. I had known several transgender students at Gryphon, at least one of whom had been an absolute delight – a gifted scholar in the making with a love of language that even surpassed my own. But none of them had ever opened up to me about their struggles, and it never occurred to me that they ought to. I wasn’t a very likely confidante, nor, I suppose, had I been very approachable. “I am so very sorry,” I said.
The silence in the room was deafening, especially in contrast to the cacophony of spirited free-for-all that preceded it. Aguia, in particular, looked pained. As well he might, I thought. He had to have known Troi Harris was trans; it should have occurred to him to think of how my story – and, more, my over-the-top appearance – would affect her.
“Oh, boo hoo! Life ain’t fair. Really? Shit girl, you think that’s breakin’ news?” Janet’s eyes were bright and uncharacteristically fierce.
“Janet!” I exclaimed, shocked and startled.
“Professor,” Aguia said diplomatically, “that was . . .”
“A direct quote,” Harris finished, sourly. “From Quentin’s Rangers. Like Richelieu said, ‘one should be careful what one writes.’”
“‘And to whom one gives it,’ if I remember the line right,” Janet said. “In this case, me. I loved that whole series. Especially tough-as-nails, spare the pity-party Sergeant Hart. Didn’t hurt that you named her Janet. I always thought she was your voice in that book. But maybe I was wrong.”
“They were all my voices,” Harris shot back. “But, okay. Yeah . . . Hart was the one I wanted to be like. There were others who might have been closer to who I am . . . when it’s maybe not my best day.”
Grillo intervened, his surprisingly high voice gentle. “Troi. Honey. Stanley didn’t invite you here to torture you. More than anyone, you’ve put real thought into what aliens and alien cultures might be like. I don’t have a tenth of your imagination that way. We have a short window here, and it may never come again in our lifetimes. We really need your ‘best day!’”
“You can always hate me later,” I offered. “Seriously. I think you’ve got every right to.”
She closed her eyes, and her face went through a startling number of complex expressions. After a minute, she opened her deep brown eyes and looked at me directly. “Did they actually say they were giving us their current battery tech?”
Crisis averted? Maybe?
I got my mind in gear. “Not directly. I asked how much energy they could store in a device the size of a twelve ounce Coke can. The implication was that it was their current tech.”
Harris puffed her cheeks in and out, visibly thinking. “Maybe. Probably, even. But, it may be that their most advanced tech isn’t optimized for the specified size constraints.”
Grillo was nodding slowly. “Yeah, that’s certainly possible.”
Mercifully, we moved on. Whatever Troi might be feeling, she did not let it affect her further.
The scientists really got engaged when it came to the issue of language and the possibility of collective consciousness. Kurokawa was particularly enthused. “This would dramatically affect every aspect of their society. Everything! The balance between the communitarian impulse and the individual. The raising of offspring. The concept of 'other.' I mean – wouldn’t the very concept of race, as we know it on earth, be impossible for a species that had a collective memory?”
Cormier shook her head. “Maybe, but I don’t think it would necessarily follow. Consider Carl Jung’s view that even our species has a vestigial collective memory, manifested in shared archetypes in our collective unconscious. Even if Jung was right – and it’s just a theory – we obviously have layers of non-collective memory.”
“Yes!” Kurokawa exclaimed. “So, in theory, you could have a collective consciousness and memory at a species level, with an overlay of a distinct group consciousness and individual consciousness.”
“That would be a pretty volatile mix, I’d think,” Grillo said.
Harris frowned. “Yeah – you could have group consciousness-infused racism that would be even worse than what we have.”
Aguia shook his head. “That doesn’t seem to fit what Jessica and Janet have reported. They were particularly unimpressed with our lack of a unified culture and language.”
“Even turned up their noses at Scooby Doo, if you can believe it,” Janet growled.
“Did they indeed?” Aguia shook his head. “Well. Even Philistines have their good points, I’m sure. But, the value the aliens place on species unity seems incompatible with sub-group consciousness as you’re describing it, Troi.”
“Unless they had intraspecies diversity at one time, and their current monoculture is the result of one faction dominating and either absorbing or destroying the rest,” Harris said. “That would actually tend to reinforce a visceral rejection of diversity.”
“It would, absolutely,” Kurokawa confirmed.
“Count on Troi Harris to see the dark side!” Grillo grinned.
“No pie-in-the-sky in my stories, big boy,” she joked. “Not like Apotheosis!”
“I thought you liked Apotheosis,’” Grillo said, wide-eyed.
“Oh, I did! Ate it up. Best characters you’ve ever written, and you write better characters than anyone I know – very much including me. But even you’ve gotta admit, Dave, the ending was pretty . . . ah . . . fairy-tale perfect.” Harris’ smile was broad and affectionate; it was apparent that the two authors knew – and liked – each other well.
“You certainly see the dark side,” Janet observed, “but you never joined it. Or valorized it.”
Harris gave her a thoughtful look. “No,” she said quietly. “I might have, once.” Then she smiled, changing the mood. “But I’d need Luther Corbin’s pipe-organ bass to really pull it off, and I had several medical interventions to make good and certain that never happened!”
We laughed.
Aguia had arranged to have lunch brought in – blandwiches and bottled water – and that was perfect. We were too engrossed in our discussion to do anything more than top off the fuel tank. I did finally come to the end of my story, sort of, but the discussion rolled on, with each of the participants throwing out theories and caveats and alternative possibilities.
We talked about how the aliens might look. “Troi covered the theory in The Unicorn Factor,” Grillo said. “There are good reasons to believe that the aliens’ bodies aren’t dramatically larger or smaller than our own.”
Troi nodded. “The Twitter summary is that the square cube law restricts plausible maximum size and the need for a large enough neural net to support advanced sentience restricts plausible minimum size.”
“Is there anything we can deduce about their physical forms from Jessica and Janet’s interactions with them, that might support or undermine the theory?” Aguia asked.
“Maybe not,” Kurokawa said. “The professors could have been interacting with pure projections, right?”
“That doesn’t feel right,” Harris replied. “First, ‘Ensign Worm’ felt the need to grab Jessica – well, James – when they first met, leaping over the fire to do it. James felt the touch physically. And, Worm handed Jessica the battery later . . . and performed a medical operation. I mean, maybe a projection could do all of that, but it seems like a lot.”
“What can you recall about that leap, Jessica?” Cormier asked.
I thought for a minute. “There was a lot going on, but . . . it wasn’t a human leap. Worm was on the other side of the fire. Twelve feet away, prolly. He didn’t get a running start, like a person would. He just bent a bit at the knees and jumped. High enough to clear the fire easily, but no more’n that.”
“Huh.” It was Cormier’s turn to think. “Of course, if it was a really big creature that could just step over the fire, it could cover with an illusion of a human jumping. But that seems like a lot to process in the spur of the moment.”
“Agreed,” Grillo said. “If I were creating a dynamic illusion, I would simply program the illusion to link to whatever part of my anatomy most closely corresponded to the human equivalent. So, I would link the “leg” illusion to the motion of whatever appendages I use for locomotion. That way, most of the illusion could be programmed in advance and wouldn’t require actual decisions that could distract me.”
“That would also suggest that elements of the human anatomy that had no alien counterpart would appear more static than you would expect if you were interacting with another human,” Cormier said.
“Worm and the boys all have pretty wooden faces, that’s for sure,” Janet noted.
“Although,” Kurokawa cautioned, “that could just as easily be because their corresponding features don’t move anything like ours, or carry any communicative significance. Let’s say they had both an eye and an eyebrow. They might not be able to raise their eyebrow. And even if they did, it almost certainly wouldn’t signify surprise, or communicate a question.”
“Spock will be so disappointed,” Janet murmured.
“You know he’s dead, right?” I asked her.
“Only in the Kelvin Timeline,” Grillo said.
“No, no,” Kurokawa said. “That’s . . . ”
“ . . . a bit off topic,” Aguia said firmly. “If I may throw out a question, what – if anything – can we deduce about the alien’s home world?”
“Were the colors on their Star Trek uniforms accurate?” Cormier inquired.
“Kayla,” Aguia warned.
She smiled. “Not a digression, Stanley. Bear with me.”
“I think so,” I answered, “though I’m not exactly a big fan of the show.”
“Too lowbrow for my ‘distinguished’ colleague,” Janet joked. “Not for me, of course, ’cuz I’m just a full professor. Yeah, they were accurate. Command gold for the Elder, science blue for the guy at Spock’s station, expendable red for the guy at comms. The tints and shades looked right. Does it matter?”
Cormier nodded. “I think so. I would say it makes it more likely that their home system’s star, like ours, is a golden G-type. And that they have some form of ocular sense that is at least as capable of reading fine gradations in what we think of as the visible light spectrum as the human eye.”
“Unless they were just smart enough to figure out how someone with a human mark-one eyeball would perceive the colors in the transmissions they reviewed,” Harris argued.
“Possible, but . . . it seems like quite a leap. Our brain is heavily involved in ‘reading’ the raw feed from our optic nerves,” Cormier countered. “Think of the mistakes they were making with the English language. The likelihood they would make similar mistakes with a wholly foreign system of color differentiation seems pretty high.”
Janet shook her head, a look of wonder on her face. “Sometimes it pays to be a nerd, guys!”
“It just doesn’t necessarily pay well,” Kurokawa added with a laugh.
Anatomy, physiology, sociology, culture, and geography . . . . Everyone had ideas and comments. There were times it felt like we had more devil’s advocates than a meeting of the ABA. But Aguia guided the discussion masterfully, keeping us from going too far down any particular rabbit hole and showing a genuine appreciation for everyone’s contributions. I could see why the President put him in charge of his irregulars. In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral . . . .
The eager, open speculation made a convivial conversation for any academic, so Janet and I felt right at home. But we ended with more questions than answers. A lot more.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “All of these things we’ve been talking about . . . I didn’t have the first idea. We didn’t know what to ask. It would have been so much better – for all of mankind, really – if Worm had dropped in on one of you.”
Harris gave me a complicated look. “I think everyone here would have given the world to be the one. . . . Especially me,” she said quietly. “But I can honestly say, I don’t know that anyone could have done any better than you did. And I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t have done as well.”
Grillo smiled. “You get extra points for your tractor beam tricks. Damn! I wish I could have seen that!” He whistled a few bars of The Blue Danube.
That got a laugh.
“Things tend to happen for a reason,” Cormier said philosophically.
I shook my head. “No, sometimes things happen randomly. Stupidly. It’s blind luck, and sometimes it’s bad luck.”
“Don’t beat up on yourself, Jessica,” Aguia admonished. “You’ve managed to accomplish the most important thing. The People trust you.”
“Amen!” Kurokawa said, with great feeling. “Relations between societies need some level of trust to be productive. You may be the only bridge we have.”
“But . . . that’s not a good thing,” I said. “They can’t begin to understand our species just by talking to one of us. We aren’t the People. Whether they like it or not, diversity defines us. And all they’ve seen is its bad side.”
“All we can do is what they’ll permit,” Aguia pointed out. “We can’t make them talk with us.”
It was 6:30, and we still hadn’t heard anything from Dr. Livingston or Corbin. Aguia sent Livingston a message and got back, “Send them home for the night. We’ll be at it for hours more. But have them back by 8:00 a.m.”
Aguia looked around at all the participants in the day’s discussions. “I don’t know whether we’ll get much time with Jessica and Janet tomorrow, but we might. We can reconvene here at 8:00 a.m., if you're game.”
Everyone was.
Janet and I headed back towards Livingston’s Office; we needed to check in with someone to get connected with our security detail.
Surprisingly, Troi Harris walked with us. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I didn’t mean what I said, about hating you. That’s not who I am – not anymore, anyway. I’ve been in a good place for a while now, and any time that happens, I convince myself I’m all good. As soon as I do, boom. Just like that. My emotions jump up out of the black pit and drag me back.”
“I really am so very sorry. Whatever Stoneheart over there may say,” I nodded at Janet, “I think you’d be perfectly justified in wanting to rip this pretty face right off me. But . . . I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Grown accustomed to your face, have you?” she asked, with a smile.
“I have. It’s weird. I was a man for sixty years. I’ve been a woman for just a few weeks. But this just feels so much more real . . . like everything else was just a dream. Not a bad dream, by any stretch. But . . . Not real, in some sense.”
“Recency bias?” Troi asked.
I thought about it. “Yes. Undoubtedly that’s a big part of it. Present reality is the only reality, and all of time is now, right? But it’s more than that. Being a woman . . . suits me, somehow. I can’t put it any more clearly than that.”
“You like it, then?” she asked.
I nodded. “I do.”
Janet cracked up. “She likes it! Hey Mikey!!! Don’t believe her, Troi. Jessica ‘likes’ bein’ a woman like Gollum ‘liked’ Sauron’s ring. She loves the shit out of it. God’s truth. Took to it like a cat to a sun patch!”
I blushed raspberry red, but nodded again. “Guilty, I’m afraid. I mean, the period purely sucked, but even that’s just proof, like you said, that my systems all work.”
“Behind every silver lining is a big, black cloud,” Janet quipped.
Troi smiled at our byplay. “I’m glad. It would have been worse if you were moping around about having to be female, or missing your dangley bits, when there are so many of us who would have given everything we had, and everything we could get, for what they gave you gratis.”
“After our session today, I understand why Stanley wanted you to come – your insights were amazing.” I paused, trying to find the right way to say what I was thinking. I gave up. “I just wish there had been a way to avoid causing you so much grief.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have missed that session for anything. It’s part of why I get so frustrated with myself, sometimes. I’m given a chance like this, by Stanley Aguia of all people, and I almost blow it because of old emotions and bad memories. You’d think I was still twelve or something!”
We reached Livingston’s suite. On impulse, I said, “Troi” – we’d all been using first names in the discussion – “I don’t know what the limitations are on our movement. I’ve got to check with the security team. They can’t just bring us back to the safe house; we’ve worn these outfits twice in ninety degree weather with ninety percent humidity. But we could both use some real food, too. If the security team allows it, could I talk you into joining us for dinner somewhere?”
She hesitated for just a moment, but then her features cleared. “Yes. I’d like that.”
“Great. Let me check,” I said.
Mitt Walters was amenable, so long as certain precautions were taken. They were familiar with a restaurant in Arlington where they thought we could eat while being inconspicuous, and they made pains to keep clear lines of retreat and exit options in case things went south. It all seemed like a lot of bother, now that Singh, Agnew and Tsong were out of the picture. But I hadn’t forgotten what getting shot felt like, so I let them do their thing.
They also agreed they could take Janet and me to Pentagon City afterward for some shopping. “You’ll need to be quick about it,” Mitt said, blanching at the thought of escorting us on a shopping expedition. “Security first, you understand?”
I grinned at him. “Oh, naturally! We won’t linger in the lingerie.”
“Too much peril?” Janet teased.
“Way too much peril!!!” Mitt said, panic showing in his face.
We had a delightful dinner with Troi. Great Cuban food . . . candle light and crisp white linens . . . a good Rioja vintage . . . quiet, understated service. Because we were in a public place, we made no mention of aliens, energy storage or weapons-grade uranium. Instead, we mostly talked about Troi’s books. Janet was not only a real fan of her work, as a literature professor she was probably one of the most educated fans Troi might have.
“I was surprised so few people picked up on how closely I based Adhya Khan’s character on Ahab,” Troi said.
Janet shook her head in disbelief. “The way she so single-mindedly pursued vengeance – destroying her whole life to achieve it – how could anyone miss the parallel?
“Maybe they just don’t associate wrath with female characters,” Troi offered.
“Which only goes to show that I and my colleagues have failed – completely failed – to hammer the rudiments of knowledge into young skulls!”
“Maybe you can’t put in what God left out,” Troi said, then dissolved into laughter. “I know – it should make no sense for me to say that!”
When Janet stopped laughing, she said, “Maybe if you’d made her first name “Abha” instead, people might have figured it out.”
“Believe it or not, I thought about it,” Troi confessed. “That was too much even for me. I suppose anyone who can’t figure out the parallel will just think I’m an original genius!”
There were lots of exchanges like that. I mostly sat back and listened while they geeked out. Janet was right, I decided. I really did need to read more. But tonight was right out, and tomorrow didn’t look so good either.
I did eventually steer the conversation to Troi’s life, which turned out to be a litany of overachievement. If she was, as Stanley Aguia jokingly suggested, a ‘shameless self-promoter,’ she at least had some pretty amazing things to promote.
“So,” I summarized after drawing her out, “by the time you were twenty-seven, you had graduated from Carleton College, written – and published! – two short novels and one four-book series, cycled across the country, hiked the full Appalachian Trail, and transitioned from male to female. And you have a pilot’s license for fixed wing and rotary. You’ve traveled on six continents and base jumped in a squirrel suit. I mean . . . damn!!!”
“I bet she leaps tall buildings with a single bound, too!” Janet’s tone, like mine, was full of admiration.
“My brain just never stops spinning,” she said. “I can’t turn it off. So I hike, or cycle, or jump, or whatever, just to get a little peace. And even then, half the time, I’m thinking up a new story.”
“Why science fiction?” I asked.
“Why linguistics?” she countered, but immediately relented. “I’m sorry. That was defensive. Truth is, SciFi comes naturally to me. As a trans woman, I’ve always felt like I was living in an alien world. Our culture’s rules and norms feel foreign to me, in a way that they just don’t for most cisgendered people I know. It’s easy for me to write about alien worlds. Alien cultures. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
“A Stranger in a Strange Land?” Janet asked.
“Not one of my faves, honestly – not even one of my favorites by Heinlein – but . . . yeah. That’s the idea.”
“How young were you, when you realized you were trans?” I asked.
“Before I had the words to explain it,” she replied. “Before I started school, for sure. The older I got, the clearer it became. I hit the point where I couldn’t live with it anymore.”
We talked for an hour and a half. I learned things that maybe I should have made a point of finding out, back when I was a “distinguished” professor and had trans kids in my lectures and seminars, trying to find their way. But Troi probably wouldn’t have confided in James Wainwright, however well intentioned he might have been. That she was willing to tell me her story now was just a side benefit the aliens had given me, along with my young and female form.
Our security folks were getting pretty antsy, so we passed on dessert. I walked Troi to her car where, surprisingly, she turned and gave me a hug.
“Today could have been bad,” she said. “I was sure my black devils were going to come for me tonight. I don’t think they will, now.”
I hugged her back, hard. And, strangely, found myself fighting tears, and reluctant to let her go. “It should have been you, Troi. It should have been!”
Life really is unfair.
We were back in our safehouse ninety minutes later after a short stop at the Pentagon City mall. We would not have to embarrass ourselves if we had two more days of meetings.
Mitt had posted Vic outside on a rise that had a good overall view of the house and brought Gordon and Roger inside. “Alright you two, grab some rack time. I’ll wake you up at 0200 to spell us.” They all went downstairs, where both bunks and the command center were located.
I had some additional arrangements to make. Janet made some tea and joined me in the living room. I placed a call.
“How was your day, dear?” Worm asked when we connected.
“Productive – I think. I’m hopeful I’ll have an offer to bring to you tomorrow morning.”
“We prepared are,” Worm responded.
“Worm . . . . I know that Elder Mission Leader said you would only ‘deal’ with me. But – apart from our negotiations – would you at least be willing to talk with more of us?”
“I do not understanding what for is this,” Worm replied, mechanically.
“This isn’t just our first contact with your species. It’s our first contact with any non-earth species. There are better representatives of our species than me – at least some of them should talk to you, and you to them.”
“This will our negotiations help?” he asked.
Be honest, I thought. “No. I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to reach a mutually satisfactory deal in the timeframe you’ve set. This request is purely personal. I think it would be good. For our species – and for yours. You should meet some of our best.”
“Jessica James . . . We are, you say, maybe, ‘shy’. . . . Elder Mission Leader decide will.”
I couldn’t ask for more than that. “Alright. Thank you.”
We ended the call and I sat back in the chair, thinking. We were quiet for a bit, finishing our tea.
“Jessica?” Janet’s voice was soft. Far away.
“Umm hmm?” I responded.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Oh, sure. Absolutely,” I said. “Someday.”
“Stop frettin’. You’re gonna change the world in a way that usually only war and fluoride can.”
“What?”
Even her laugh was sleepy. “You keep sayin’ that like it means somethin’.”
“I’m not half the woman Troi is, and I never will be. It should have been her, Janet!”
“We don’t need perfect, girl. We need you. Have some faith. And get some rest.”
We turned in.
* * * * *
Diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo-do, my phone sang, waking me up from a disturbing dream. Still half asleep, I scrambled for the unit, trying to recall where I’d plugged it in. I grabbed it and managed “hello?”
“Worm this is,” replied the Ensign’s wooden voice. “Two male humans approaching house are. Walking strange.”
“Strange in what way?”
“Your species normal walk on your long two appendages, yes?” He asked.
“Uhhh . . . yeah.” For the last few millennia, I thought.
“These on all appendages four walk. Slow.”
“Can you tell whether they are carrying weapons?” I asked.
Siri’s melodious soprano voice kicked in. “This is Elder Specialist. Sensors indicate each human is carrying over three pounds of metal alloys, mostly iron infused with carbon, chromium and manganese. These results are consistent with items you call ‘guns,’ though other explanations are possible.”
“Communications equipment?” I asked.
“Affirmative,” Siri’s voice responded.
“Do you have the ability to block the signals going to or from their communications equipment?” I was thinking quickly.
“Affirmative,” the Elder Specialist repeated.
“How far are they from either the house or the human guard stationed outside?” I asked.
“247 feet from your current location,” Elder Specialist responded, “and 316 feet from the location of the other human in your party.” He gave me the directional information as well, which was helpful.
I was fully awake now. What to do? At very least, I needed to alert Mitt and his team. They wouldn't know where I got the information, but they would certainly spot the intruders if they knew where to look . . . .
But then what? If they tried to stop the intruders, in the dark of the night, there was a good chance gunfire might ensue. Someone could get hurt . . . or killed.
Not on MY watch!
I came to a decision. “Okay . . . keep the line open. Worm, if they make any rapid moves, please use the tractor beam to repeat the quick, random up-and-down motion you used the other day on the people who were driving Janet, Mr. Grant and me. I want to make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Affirmative, Jessica James,” Worm replied.
I got up and slipped downstairs. Roger was at the communications station.
His eyes bugged out. I picked the wrong night not to grab a boring bathrobe, I thought, just a little late to be useful.
“Roger. I got a call from a source. We’ve got two armed people attempting to sneak up on the house.”
He started to rise, looking grim. “What kind of source?”
I waved him back down. “I think we can immobilize them until morning, and that’s what I’d like to do. But I want to make sure that Gordon stays safe out there. Can you put me through to him?”
“Miss, let us handle this. Taking care of bogeys is what we do. What you need to do is let us do our jobs, okay?” Roger sounded strong, chivalrous, kind . . . .
Just what I don't need right now! I had to remind myself that, as far as he was concerned, I was just a seventeen-year-old girl he was supposed to protect. “Please. Trust me on this. It really is need-to-know.”
“’Course it is, Honey. But this is my field, and we’ve got protocols for this. You and the Prof’ll be perfectly safe, I promise. If there’s something out there, we’ll find it, and we’ll do it to them before they do it to us, if you follow me. Don’t be frightened.”
I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. This action had the unfortunate effect of rearranging the more . . . ah . . . prominent parts of my new equipment, pushing them against the light fabric of my nightie.
Roger’s eyes wandered . . . .
My frustration boiled over. For the love of all that’s holy!!! I'm just BREATHING!!! It’s NOT a come-on!!!
“Roger,” I said sweetly, “I’m not frightened in the least. What I am is seriously frustrated, because you’re wasting time and we don’t have much of it. If you don’t give me that microphone I’m going to start screaming.”
His eyes snapped back to my face – yay! – and he looked annoyed. But he managed to get himself mostly under control. “Alright, girl. Make Gordo’s day, then!” He thrust the mike into my hands.
I took the mike and opened the line. “Gordon, this is Jessica James down at the house. Please respond by two clicks on your microphone, without making any sound.”
A couple seconds went by, then I heard a distinct “click click.”
“I have information that two” – I looked at Roger – “‘bogies’ are inbound, on foot, probably keeping low as they move. Two minutes ago, they would have been approximately 100 yards from your location, north-by-northwest. If you can confirm that information, double click.”
Almost a minute went by, then I heard another double click.
Roger looked shocked.
Call ME 'Honey,' will you? I thought.
“Okay,” I said. “Listen closely. The bogies will not move from their location until morning. If they make any noises, you are to ignore them and stay out of sight at all times. This is important. Please confirm with two clicks.”
Silence.
After a minute, Roger said, “Surprise, surprise, surprise! Ol’ Gordo just sent me a text, asking what the fuck is going on. And I can’t tell him, ’cuz I don’t know myself.” He took a steadying breath himself, then continued. “Now look, your intel was good, and I surely do appreciate it. Really. But you need to let us do our jobs now. Please. We’re trained for this. You’re not.”
“Please confirm my instructions, Roger. I really do know what I’m doing.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, sounding earnest. “You’re asking me to leave a known threat active, and you won’t even give me a reason. Final point. You don’t give ‘instructions.’”
“But I do.” Mitt Walters stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but an olive T-shirt and boxer shorts. It did nothing to diminish his aura of command. “Confirm Miss James’ instructions, Roger, but tell Gordon to report immediately if the bogies are in motion.”
Roger looked at him, shook his head, and said, “Okay, boss.” He typed furiously on his phone for a moment, then hit send.
Click click, went the speaker.
“Alright. Thank you. I need to make a call,” I said, and turned to go upstairs.
“If I could have a moment when you’re done?” Mitt asked.
“Of course. Just meet me in the living room.” I dashed upstairs. As soon as I was out of earshot, I said, “Okay. Worm, if you could, please block the two human intruders’ communications transmissions, incoming or outgoing, and lift them up so that they can’t touch the ground. No further than that.” I got to my room, closed the door, and put the phone to my ear.
“Acknowledged . . . and, done.” he replied.
I headed back into the living room. Mitt was standing in the middle of the floor, waiting.
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t know why you were able to trust me, but I’m very glad you did.”
“My employer said I should, within reason. You pushed the envelope pretty far just now. Farther than you should’ve with Rog, for sure.”
I felt like a child, called to task for misbehavior. But . . . he had a point. Based on what the team knew about Janet and me – essentially, nothing – Roger’s actions were reasonable. “I’m sorry . . . Really I am. I am trying, very hard, to keep anyone from getting hurt.”
He gave me a long, thoughtful look. “I understand there are some things you can’t tell me. But . . . my job, and my team’s job, will be a lot easier – and safer – if you tell us as much as you can.”
He was very close, and very solid. My heart beat faster, and I felt a shiver go through me.
I suppressed it. “The two people who were coming this way won’t move. But, they can still draw weapons and use them, and we have to assume they’re armed. I’m going to call the officials in DC we’ve been dealing with – the same ones that brought your team in – and they can decide how to handle it.”
“And the bad guys are just going to sit out there in the field until someone comes?” He sounded skeptical.
“That’s the idea,” I said.
“They may have other ideas, you know. People have been known to.”
I expect my smile was as tired as I was. “They might. But they’ll keep for now.”
He smiled back at me. “Long as they do, we’ll play by your rules. But I’m starting to think that this time, the truth might actually be stranger than my story.”
“I liked your story better.”
“Okay . . . Highness.” He sketched an ironic bow and went back downstairs.
I went back to my bedroom, pausing only to listen at Janet’s door. The sound of soft snoring reassured me. Janet had looked incredibly weary when we turned in; she needed some real sleep.
I shut my door, sat on my bed, and thought for a couple of minutes. Then I placed a call.
“Jessica?” Dukkov Grant sounded both surprised and, surprisingly, very awake.
“It’s me. I’m sorry to call you at this ungodly hour.”
“What’s up?”
I explained the situation. “I don’t know how we should handle them. The security detail assigned to us doesn’t know anything, and I assume – so do they – that was deliberate. But they’ll start putting two and two together in a hurry if they see a couple goons hanging around in the field with no visible means of support.”
“Hardly. Most goons don't have any visible means of support,” he said absently. “But I take your point. I’ll come on over and take care of them, alright? I should be there in forty-five minutes or so.”
“You’ll have backup? They’re armed.”
“Leave that to me,” he said.
I put on a robe, went down and told Mitt that the cavalry was on its way, then went back upstairs to wait in the living room. I couldn’t sleep. Until, suddenly, I couldn’t stay awake.
Diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo-do.
“Shit,” I snarled. Then woke up and grabbed my phone. “Yes?”
“Jessica James, Mr. Grant has from human intruders removed metal weapons. Should release them, yes?” Worm’s voice was, as usual, neutral.
“Wait just a minute. Let me confirm.” I called Grant.
“You’ll be so surprised at what the cat dragged in,” he said when he answered.
I could hear indistinct and unimaginative cursing in the background.
“Can it, motormouth. I’m talking here. . . . No? Fine. Have a shutthefuckupcake.” Grant’s voice was muffled, like he was trying to block the mic.
“Do you have them secure? Should the aliens shut down the tractor beam?” I asked him.
“Yeah, be a good idea. They’re cuffed. I’ll frog-march ’em to my car.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.” I made the arrangements with Worm, cinched my robe a bit tighter, then went outside. A couple minutes later, the pale crescent moon revealed three figures approaching the house, two stumbling ahead, covered in camo gear and face paint.
As they got closer, I felt a presence at my side. “Son of a hamster!” Janet said. “If it isn’t Thing One and Thing Two.”
I hadn’t noticed, what with all the cosplay warrior gear, but it was, indeed, the Brothers Tweedle – the same pair who had tried to whisk Janet and me off to join Averil Livingston in polite captivity. “Slow learners, aren’t you?” I asked them.
“Fuck you! Fuck you both!” snarled Tweedle Dee. Or Dum. I really couldn’t tell them apart.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” said Janet. “And our parents, siblings and pet rodents, too. Gotta say, you’re busy little fuckers.”
“You really should have taken the hint last time,” I said. “If you’d just started running once your feet hit the ground, you might have gotten clean away. Now you’d better start cooperating, or I expect you’ll be spending a long time away from your families.”
“I got nothin’ to say,” Tweedle Dum said defiantly. Or maybe it was Dee. But Dee was the smart one, so that couldn’t be right.
“I see nothing! I know nothing!” Janet snarked, putting on an accent.
Grant pushed them into the back seat of his car. “Damn,” he said. “I thought you guys smelled bad outside.”
“What’s your guess?” I asked him. “Were they freelancing?”
“I calculate not,” he responded. “That’s a lot of pricey gear they’ve got there. But I doubt they’ll keep us guessing for long.”
It wasn’t cold – even at night, summers in the D.C. area are warm and thick – but I shivered. “Thank you. You do sleep sometimes, don’t you?”
He smiled, tipped an imaginary hat, and said, “Ladies.” Then he drove off.
Mitt was waiting when we came back inside. “Crisis averted?”
“This one, anyway,” I said.
“Well, I’ll give you this, Highness. You may be an exile from Erehwon, but you’ve got good intel and some high-octane juice. . . . The boys’ll have some good stories.” He was looking at me closely.
“It would be better if you could make up a story for them,” I said. “Something really good.”
“A Mitty special,” Janet agreed.
He smiled. “I’ll do that. You’ve got about ninety minutes before you’ve got to get up again; better rack out.”
“Thanks, Mr. Walters.”
“G’night again, Prof. . . . Princess.”
We laughed and went back to bed.
* * * * *
We were almost back at the EEOB when Worm’s call came in. “Good morning,” I said, answering.
“Jessica James,” Worm replied. “Elder Mission Leader willing is for people two more to accompany you today. They will not with you be during negotiations.”
Only two!!! But . . . it was better than just me. Or even, just me, Janet and Justin. There are people in this world, I thought, whose names DON'T begin with a "J."
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I know where we are this morning.”
“We know ‘where you are.’” Worm said, apparently puzzled.
“Sorry; figure of speech again. I mean, I will communicate with you when I know whether I’ve been given clearance to make an offer to you. I will need you to not listen in for a while, okay?”
“Affirmative, Jessica James.”
When we arrived, we were taken straight to the Science Advisor’s suite, where an exhausted-looking Dr. Livingston was waiting for us. “Good morning,” she said with a weak smile. “Grant tells me you had a fun night, too.”
“I’d take it over sittin’ in an all-day meeting with Mr. Secretary Britt,” Janet said. “You okay, Averil?”
“I’ll do,” she responded.
“Has Grant learned anything from them?” I asked.
Livingston shook her head. “Not yet. For now, it’s enough to know there are still threats out there, so we can take appropriate measures. But we’ll take care of that. You’ve got more important things to think about. We’ve got an offer to put on the table, and Corbin will be here in half an hour to brief you personally.”
“Outstanding!” My spirits lifted immeasurably. Real progress! But . . . “Averil, I need to talk with General Aguia and his group for a couple minutes before Mr. Corbin gets here. Are they in the building?”
“Yes, back in the library. Do you need help finding it?”
I wanted to say yes, but the poor woman was dead on her feet. “We’ll manage. Honest. Get some sleep!”
She nodded her thanks, and we headed down the hall. Made a turn. Another . . . .
“Shit. We’re lost,” I said.
“We could start randomly opening doors,” Janet suggested. “Or maybe yodeling.”
“You know how to yodel?” I was surprised. But Janet was always full of surprises.
“Can’t say I've ever tried it,” she responded, “but this looks like as good a place as any to learn, don’t ya think?”
I did not have time to be lost! “Every time we come here, I feel like we’re trapped inside a CucKoo Clock!”
“A Cuckoo Clockwork Orange, maybe,” Janet said.
A door opened ahead of us, and Stanley Aguia’s head popped out. “Ah! I’ve spotted them!”
When we rejoined the group, I said, “This is going to sound like the set-up for a bad joke, but I’ve got good news and bad news. Heartbreaking news.”
Aguia raised an eyebrow, which fortunately is a readily interpreted query between humans.
“I can bring two of you with me today when I meet with the aliens. . . . But only two. I’m so sorry. It’s all they were willing to do.”
Aguia glanced at his colleagues, then turned back to me, an easy smile on his face. “It’s all good news, Jessica. Really. Who do you want to go with you and Janet?”
Janet shook her head. “I’ve met ’em and they’ve met me. This is your shot, guys.”
“You’re certain?” Aguia asked.
Janet nodded. “Honestly, I could use a bit more of what our security boys charmingly call ‘rack time.’”
I said, “Janet wouldn’t be able to help me negotiate, anyway. They’re insisting I do that alone. This is just for, I guess you’d say, cultural exchange.”
“So, who gets Wonka’s golden tickets?” Aguia asked.
“Your choice,” I said. “If I do the picking, my biases will inform the choice. And the point is to increase the alien’s exposure to diverse viewpoints.”
Aguia looked at his colleagues.
They looked at each other. Then back at Aguia.
And shook their heads.
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” the general said gently. “This is your mission. The aliens trust you. . . . And so do we.”
I wanted to protest, but there was no time. I knew who I thought the best choices were, I just didn’t trust myself to be right. “I’m so very sorry,” I said. “I wish I could bring all of you. Troi, Daichi . . . . we should leave as soon as Mr. Corbin’s done giving me the offer.”
Aguia’s face showed nothing but compassion. “Why don’t you head back to Averil’s office,” he suggested. “Janet, can you stay here? We should caucus with the ‘Away Team’ before they go.”
I left, feeling like a complete heel. I didn't want to see the hurt in Dave Grillo’s eyes, or Kayla Cormier’s. But I was soon in a solitary office with Luther Corbin, and I had to focus, fast.
“Good morning, Professor,” he said, standing and reaching out to shake my hand. “How’s your poker game?”
* * * * *
An hour later, Janet and I were sharing a car with Harris and Kurokawa. Mr. Grant had the wheel, and he was taking us away from the capital, where our unorthodox “beam up” would be less likely to attract attention.
“You’ll be fine, Jessica.” Janet said. “I mean, unless you start an interstellar war or something. That would be genuinely bad.”
“Would not recommend,” Troi agreed.
“I’ll try to bear that in mind,” I said, “though whether I can manage it without Janet along to keep me . . . humble? Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
Janet looked pleased. “Continuity is so important. Thank you for always being a jerk!”
“My pleasure, I assure you,” I assured her.
Grant stopped at a grassy knoll inside a small grove of hardwoods, probably forty minutes south and east of the Capitol. It felt like more.
We walked up to the top. “Great view from here,” Grant said.
“Keep her out of trouble, will you?” I asked him.
He looked up and squinted in the bright sunlight. “A man’s got to know his limitations.” His voice was gravelly.
Janet giggled, then said, “Game on, girl!”
I looked at my two companions. “Ready?”
They nodded, anticipation palpable.
“Three to beam up.”
We shot into the air – no gentle drift this time. I had the sense that the aliens intended to take the ship lower to further reduce our exposed time in the air.
“WaHOOOOO!” Troi squealed.
Daichi looked surprised, then exultant. “Banzai!!!!”
We stopped almost as quickly, then the view beneath us disappeared. We landed gently on our feet in what I thought of as the hold of the aliens’ ship.
“Superhero landing!” Troi exclaimed.
Worm was waiting for us. “Welcome, Ms. Harris. Kurokawa-hakase.” Astonishingly, he executed a short, fairly stiff, bow.
I recovered quickly enough to say, “Troi, Daichi, this is Ensign Worm.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Daichi said, returning the bow.
Troi was staring at Worm intently. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “I am deeply honored.”
“Please to me follow,” Worm said. “I introduce you to crew will now.”
I moved to follow them, but a voice behind me said, “Not you, Ms. James. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
I spun around. “Justin!”
He grinned. “In the flesh. Ready to do some horse trading?”
. . . . To be continued. In Theory.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 17: A Piece of the Action
“Horse trading?” I asked. “I thought you were advising the aliens, not representing them!”
Justin smiled, slow and easy. “It’s an evolving relationship . . . they’re comfortable having me do this part. Come on in, we’ve got space that’s more comfortable and private than the ‘foyer.’”
Damn, I’d missed him the last few days! Strange, given how short a time I had known him. He looked good, in a fresh white dress shirt, a navy blazer and light gray wool pants. “If it’s a conference room, they’re in trouble. I’ve had enough of those!”
“Well, actually . . . .” He sounded embarrassed.
It was a bedroom. “Okay, they aren’t in trouble,” I said, “but you are!”
“Not my fault! Honest! They needed to clear a bit of space for me to set up, and I’ve been sleeping here for the past couple of nights. You’ll note I also have a desk and two comfortable chairs. I thought we might use those?”
“We could move them to the other room,” I suggested.
“We can’t, really. They look like chairs, but that’s partly an illusion.”
I was intrigued despite myself. “What do you mean, ‘partly illusion?’”
He shrugged. “It looks and feels like something from home – the leather in the chairs feels like leather; the wood looks, feels, and even smells like oak with a lemon-based furniture polish. That’s not real, I gather. But there is a chair there, or at least, there is a physical object that supports your back and . . . ah . . . rear when you sit in it. But I can’t even move it across the room, much less out of it.”
“So they cleared some space for you, huh?”
“You’d think spaceships might have plenty of space, but I assure you they don’t, Ms. James,” he responded.
My smile was lopsided, and a touch rueful. “Back to ‘Ms. James,’ am I?”
“Sorry about that,” he said with what I thought was real regret. “I need to keep my lawyer hat on today. Firmly.”
“We could use staples, I suppose. Or Gorilla Glue. I don’t bite, you know. Unless it’s called for.”
“You’re a sketch, Ms. James,” he said with a smile.
I smiled back. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
We smiled at each other for perhaps half a trice longer than the punctilio of diplomatic protocol demanded. Maybe even an entire trice. It’s hard to be exact, with trices.
“Well, let’s get started then – ‘Mr. Abel’!” I crossed over to one of the chairs and sat. It was, I thought, a comfortable enough illusion, and Lord knows, we could use a few of those. I sat up straight, crossed my legs at the knees, and rested my hands in my lap.
Justin grabbed a legal pad and a pen from his desk and took the opposite seat, looking attentive. “Alrighty, then. What’s the U.S. government willing to offer in exchange for the formula for making the type of battery Professor Grim tested?”
I thought his word choices were careful, deliberate, and very telling. The U.S. government, not me. The technology Grimm tested, not “the alien’s current generation battery technology.” But I didn’t disagree with the nice, lawyerly way that he’d phrased things.
I needed to convey the offer with equal precision. “Let me start with detailing the government’s requirements with respect to the battery tech. First, they want to confirm that it doesn’t use any materials that are not readily available, and that the processes required for manufacture are within our current capabilities. I believe the People represented that we’d be able to begin commercial-scale production within four months. The government wants to review the formula to be satisfied that these representations are correct before turning over the fissile material.
“Second, the government requires that it be given the full intellectual property rights to the formula. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the formula will have been developed by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Project Agency, Energy.”
Abel’s eyebrow rose at that stipulation. “Ballsy, I’ll give ’em that. Any other requirements?”
I shook my head. “No. In exchange for the technology, provided in accordance with those stipulations, the government is prepared to offer 650 pounds of weapons-grade uranium, the quality of which is guaranteed to meet or exceed ninety percent U-235.”
“650 pounds?” Both of Abel’s eyebrows were sky-high. “That’s it? For a technology that will revolutionize energy storage?” Even his eyes appeared to bug out.
I cocked my head. “Has anyone ever told you that you do ‘astonished’ astonishingly well?”
“Wait ’til you’ve seen my ‘disappointed,’” he mock-growled.
“Theatrics aside,” I responded, “I gather that amount is sufficient to manufacture almost twenty nuclear warheads. About as many as the government estimates North Korea has produced.”
“That’s a really good point.” He made a note on his pad, but the hand motion was inconsistent with writing letters; he was just doodling. Then he looked up, like he’d just had a thought. “Or it would be, if either the People or the U.S. government intended to use it for that purpose. But they don’t, or we wouldn’t even be having this delightful chat, would we?”
“Prolly not,” I agreed. “But your clients have a great deal of information – publicly available information – about what the government has to offer, while the government knows next to nothing about the People’s requirements or capacity. For all they knew, your clients might not need – or want – as much HEU as they’ve offered. They had to measure the offer against something.”
“They could measure it against their stockpiles – which are about a thousand times larger,” he countered.
“I so appreciate a man who does his homework,” I said approvingly. “They could look at it that way, of course, but why would they? That’s no way to measure value. Or Elon Musk would pay a million bucks for the same toaster we could buy for $29.95.”
He shook his head. “You are talking about the guy who just offered $44 billion for a company that was worth half that much, and then tried to back out of the deal after signing the papers. You know that, right?”
“Okay, maybe not the best example,” I conceded. “But for all its flaws, the U.S. government isn’t eccentric, it doesn’t have an ego as such, and it doesn’t try to use reproductive organs for problem solving. It may be crazy, but it’s not stupid!”
He scribbled on his pad some more.
“Would you like a pipe instead of a pad?” I asked him innocently.
“No,” he said, sounding puzzled. “I don’t smoke. Why do you ask?”
“I never used one myself, but in academic circles it’s well known that a pipe gives a wise man time to think.”
“Shucks, Ma’am, I’m just a humble country lawyer, trying to do the best I can against this brilliant . . . linguist.” Nonetheless, he looked mildly pleased.
“That’s okay; it also gives a fool something to stick in his mouth.” I smiled to take the sting out of my comment and leaned forward. “Come on, Justin. Time to flip some cards. How much weapons grade uranium do the People want? How much can they even carry? Until the government knows that, they’re just firing grapeshot downrange and hoping they get lucky.”
He leaned back in the apparent leather of his chair and chuckled. “Well played, Ma’am! Okay. They can carry just over twenty tons, and they want to go home with a full cargo. Does that change the offer?”
“See? Was that so hard?” I smiled encouragingly. “They did give me an alternative proposal. They’re willing to provide three and a half tons of the specified quality of HEU if, in addition to the battery technology formula, the People were willing to describe a process for safely and efficiently generating power through nuclear fusion.”
His eyebrows shot back up. “Fusion? Seriously? That’s never been on the table!”
“Codswallop!” I retorted. “We’re only just setting the table right now. You and me. Knives, plates, forks. Napkins, if you’re feeling all fancy. Wine glasses might be nice.”
“Codswallop? Seriously?”
“Forgive me. I’m an old-fashioned type. Substitute, if you prefer, bunkum, piffle, tommyrot, flapdoodle or blatherskite.”
“I do love it when you talk dirty!” He grinned, then shook his head. “I very much doubt my clients will see it that way. They’re going to feel sandbagged.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
Justin, bless him, kept his eyes riveted on my face.
“I suggested the battery technology,” I said. “Me. Jessica. You know, even if the People don’t, that the U.S. government isn’t required to conform its offer to the suggestions of a linguistics professor!”
“Not even a distinguished linguistics professor who has demonstrably perfect . . . grammar?” His eyes had a nice twinkle.
“Nope,” I said, returning his smile.
“Okay, point taken. Let me go and talk to the client, if I can pry him away from your fascinating associates. Where did you find them, by the way? Interesting choices!”
“One of the President’s advisors called them in to provide thoughts and advice on the first meeting with an alien civilization,” I told him. “The rest of the group was . . . equally impressive.”
“I’m sorry about that . . . but glad the People were willing to allow these two to come up, anyway.” He started to rise.
“You gave Worm comportment lessons, didn’t you?” I wished I could have watched that!
“Of course! All in a day’s work.” His eyes went back to twinkling. “I don’t think I’ll be too long. Feel free to hang out here. If you need to use the facilities, they rigged up something in the entry room, behind a curtain.”
I inclined my head, but remained seated. I liked the chair, honestly.
He left.
The last few days had been incredibly busy, and I had about as far from a good night’s sleep as you can get the prior night, what with the Brothers Tweedle and all. Justin’s bed was practically singing me a lullaby. But it wouldn’t do, it really wouldn’t, to be caught sleeping when he returned.
My mind suddenly called up a mental image of Justin waking me in his bed . . . . I let my eyes drift shut.
I pulled myself up short. What was I thinking? My body picked the strangest times to assert its – alright, my – suddenly strong attraction to men. Probably all the stronger in that it was a wholly new sensation, something I had never experienced in six decades of being male. James Marshall Wainwright would never have looked at Justin Abel and seen anything other than “some guy,” a designation that would have been wholly secondary to the toxic label, “lawyer.”
But Jessica James saw Justin in a completely different light. He had a sharp and – strange to an academic – highly focused intelligence that infused his mobile and expressive face. He was handsome and well-built, and while he was probably a bit shorter than I had been when I was male, he was eight or nine inches taller than me now. I felt petite when I stood next to him . . . but that didn’t feel strange at all. It felt nice. I wanted . . . .
I wanted.
Oh yes, I surely did! But . . . I needed to get my shit together. I'm such an unholy mess of a girl, I thought. With a sigh, I opened my eyes and decided I’d better stand. Walk around. Do something to keep awake. I took to pacing.
Seven steps, wall to wall. Not tiny, constrained steps; I had worn a nice pair of dress slacks today (knowing I would have a bit of flying to do), in a warm tawny brown. My white sandals were firmly attached at the ankle so as not to fly off, and had enough of a heel to be comfortable. (I thought, absently, that when all of the excitement was over, I would need to work on stretching my tendons so I was equally comfortable in flats. Damn People Magazine, anyway!). So my steps were easy and regular, though my thoughts were very much “un” and “ir.”
Back and forth, back and forth. I thought the government was being short-sided and was trying to play a long game when time was not on its side. I had said as much to Luther Corbin when he briefed me. He had told me, in his inimitable fashion, that Stanley Aguia wasn’t the only person whose primary duty consisted of coaxing feral cats into playing Mozart on the saxophone.
Back and forth, back and forth. The offer didn’t come close to twenty tons. Were the People really going to insist on getting that much U-235? The government seemed almost absurdly attached to the deadly stuff. Why couldn’t the aliens get off on nuclear waste, for the love of all that’s holy?
Back and forth. Justin has really attractive eyes. Especially when he smiles. Even more especially, when he smiles at me . . . .
Back and forth. Fusion!!! For all that I was not an expert in energy, there was one thing I knew about all the work that had been done to generate controlled fusion reactions: it required an enormous upfront expense. Massive lasers aimed with incredible precision. If the output was great enough, it would more than justify the expense. But countries that could not afford the upfront cost would – once again – be left in the cold, literally. Just dandy.
After walking for forty-five minutes and getting precisely nowhere, I got tired of pacing and returned to my seat. There was so much a stake here! How's your poker game, Professor? Luther Corbin’s jest sat in the pit of my stomach like mine tailings.
Justin returned. I started to get up, but he waved me back and sat down himself. His expression was humorous. “They said, in essence, ‘fusion? Why do you want to fuck with that shit?’”
“Well, because . . . .” I started.
He cut me off. “Don’t bother. Apparently they don’t use it, and never really have. In their collective memory, it was always the energy source of tomorrow, just like it is for us, and tomorrow is always a day away. By the time they discovered a way to generate it somewhat efficiently, they had already moved on to other, better, power sources. They assure me that neither the fusion methodology they finally developed, nor the power technology they currently use, could be turned over without violating their Prime Directive.”
“Oh,” I said. “And . . . you agreed with their interpretation of the Prime Directive?”
His eyes went soft. “I’m sorry . . . I can’t tell you what advice I gave my client, Ms. James. That has to stay confidential.”
Dammit!!! Your own fault, Jessica, I said to myself. Thought you were so clever, releasing him as your lawyer so he could advise the aliens. Now you're all alone!!
“I see,” I said. “Well . . . do you have a counter-offer I can take back to the government?
“They want 20 tons of HEU, at least 90 percent U-235, delivered and loaded before they provide the battery formula. They are willing to discuss intellectual property rights. That’s it, and they believe it’s fair. But, Elder Technical Specialist told me to pass along an additional piece of information that might sweeten the pot. The formula and processes used for the battery technology in the demo model do have other applications as well. One of them, they believe, can easily be used to boost the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by approximately 68 percent.”
“That . . . sounds good, certainly,” I said. And it did. Really, really good. But what do I know? I’m a linguist, for God’s sake, not an engineer! “Any idea what it means?”
His smile was sardonic. “No more than you do. But I assume the government’s got folks who can evaluate what that side benefit is worth.”
“Fair point.” I got to my feet. “Well, let me make a call. Please tell the People I will need them not to listen to my communications with the government. . . . And . . . not to be rude. You haven’t set any listening devices yourself, have you?”
His facial expression was a complicated mix of hurt and admiration. He rose and faced me, no more than two feet away. “No, Ms. James. I haven’t, and I won’t. That would violate professional ethics, and I take that as seriously as my clients take their honor.”
Was it wrong for me to notice that he smelled nice? A good, clean, almost spicy smell . . . . “Okay. Sorry. I had to check. You know what they say about lawyers.” The real apology was in my eyes.
“I know almost everything they say about lawyers,” he responded. “We make up most of the jokes ourselves. But what do they say about linguists?”
The only joke I knew about linguists involved their cunning, and I certainly wasn’t going to share it with Justin. . . . so I struck a pose and tried out my best attempt at a sultry voice. “Actually, people don’t often talk about linguists. But when they do . . . they use big words!”
He laughed and left.
I called the number Luther Corbin had given me.
He answered right away, his deep bass reverberating through the speaker of my cheap phone. “Professor James! Please tell me you have some good news to impart this fine day! It would be, I assure you, a welcome change. A delightful change. I should sing rhapsodies, indeed. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of one who bringeth glad tidings!” Count on the Chief of Staff to turn a simple greeting into free-form poetry.
“Hello, Mr. Corbin,” I replied. “I’m afraid my feet haven’t improved much since our morning meeting.”
“Let not your heart be troubled, Professor! It is too soon – far too soon, indeed, for me to complain about your talus and calcaneus. What news do you have for me?”
“Well, first, and probably most important: The aliens can take 20 tons of HEU, and that’s their counter, in terms of the amount. They want it loaded before they provide the formula. They’re willing to discuss the IP issue. When I raised the fusion option, I was told that they don’t have anything they can give us in that line that wouldn’t violate their ‘prime directive’ rule. But, they did say that the battery tech has other applications, and that one of those applications would boost the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by sixty eight percent.”
“Would it indeed? Corbin replied in a thoughtful voice. “Well, isn’t that interesting? I thought the fusion gambit was a long shot. . . .” He lapsed into silence, thinking.
After a few moments had passed I said, “Mr. Corbin . . . do you have any new information about last night’s attempted attack on our safehouse?”
He was silent a moment more before responding. “We do, Professor. It appears they were still working for Mr. Singh. The more important question, however, is who Mr. Singh might be working for. He appears to have vanished.”
“How did they know where to find us?” I asked.
“I’m sorry – extremely sorry – to say that I don’t have an answer to that excellent question at this time. But you may rest assured that we are working on obtaining it.”
“I . . . see,” I said. This sounded serious. “If that’s so, where’s Janet?”
Corbin said, “We parked her over at the Hay-Adams in a two-bedroom suite. I gather she’s sleeping, and the redoubtable Mr. Grant’s keeping watch.”
That response left me worried for a different reason. “You don’t trust our security detail?”
“They have always been reliable, Professor. Always. Or I would not have used them. But, until we know how your location was discovered, we need to be extra careful.”
I thought about that for a minute, but I couldn’t come up with anything else to do.
“We are doing everything in our power to get answers quickly, Professor,” Corbin assured me. “In the meantime, let me work on getting a counterproposal to take to your friends. It will take some time, but not as long as last time, I’m certain. Very certain!” He rang off.
I sat for a bit, stewing. Someone was stalking us, and I had no idea who – or how, or why. And I knew that, down in Washington, Corbin was trying to extract answers from the leviathan, and that it would take time. But the clock was ticking. How long would that popinjay Britt hold things up this time?
I went to the adjoining room to use the facilities and saw the enclosure Justin had mentioned. When I started to open the curtain, I heard Daichi Kurokawa squawk in surprise.
Behind me, Troi Harris said, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
“Yes! Please don’t!” Daichi agreed.
I laughed, and felt some of my tension lift. “How’s it going?” I asked.
I heard a strange noise, followed by Daichi’s startled, “SUGOI!!” He came out a moment later, looking startled. “It goes well, Jessica,” he said warmly. “The history of their species – we have only begun to touch on it. The barest outline. But . . . Fascinating! Extraordinary!”
Troi nodded. “Their collective memory goes back an incredibly long time. They weren’t even the first sentient species on their homeworld. Or the second, or the third.”
“Each dominant species had their day, with civilizations rising and falling . . . all the while regarding the People as barely more intelligent than we would regard mice, or dolphins,” Daichi added.
“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” Troi smiled wistfully. “Although, in their case, it was the formerly dominant species that left the scene, one after the other.”
I was incredibly relieved. It would have been criminal – and criminally stupid – if we had allowed the aliens to depart with only a commercial exchange concluded. These discussions would ultimately be more important, and they appeared to be in the best of hands. “It sounds like you’re learning a tremendous amount. God, I’m so glad you were able to come!”
“It’s enough to make me cry, thinking how short our time with them will be,” Troi said. “But . . . How’s your work going, Jessica?”
I waggled my fingers. “We’re still at the ‘feeling out positions’ stage. I’m hopeful we’ll get there, but it’s slow sledding.”
I heard Janet’s voice in the back of my mind, as clear as if she had been standing right next to me. “Tryin’ out positions, are you? How truly exhaustin’!”
Hush, woman! I thought, exasperated. Even when you aren’t with me, you’re with me!
They wished me well and went back to their session. I pushed the curtain aside to find a device that clearly functioned as a toilet, though it had no knobs or buttons that I could see. I dropped my slacks and panties and sat down gratefully. I’d gotten used to the sensation of urinating while female, but it was still less efficient. And . . . well. What was I to do for paper? I didn’t see any.
But I had no sooner finished my business than my nether region was hit with tepid, mildly fragrant liquid, followed by warm, dry air. It tickled . . . in a ridiculously sensual way. It didn’t help – or it did, depending – that I had just been thinking some wicked thoughts about a certain lawyer! But I managed to keep myself in place, and the device certainly did the job. When I got up, everything was dry and comfortable, and whatever had been discharged had disappeared. That was different.
I got my clothing back in place and went back to the room where I had been meeting with Justin. His bedroom. I wanted to call Janet, but decided to let her sleep. Sleep!
There was no way I would get any answer, despite Corbin’s best efforts, for a couple of hours. I could really use a bit of rest. Get my mind sharp again . . . .
The bed beckoned.
I sat down on it. Whether it was real, an illusion, or some combination, it was seriously comfortable. Even sinfully comfortable. But not a mortal sin, certainly. Just an itsy bitsy, teeny weenie, yellow polka dot . . . venial sin. Besides, wasn’t I an atheist? Surely . . . .
“Oh, stop dithering,” I said out loud. I reached down and unbuckled the delicate straps on each of my sandals. Nothing wrong with my feet, I thought. Though I’m not sure I’d write psalms about them. I stretched out on top of the covers, making sure to set my phone down on the table with the ringer on its highest setting. Amazingly, in a moment’s time, I was dead to the world. Maybe even the universe.
I don’t know how long I slept. It felt like it was a while, and it was deep. I was awakened, not by my phone, but by the gentle pressure of a hand against one check, and the sound of Justin’s voice.
“Jessica.” He had a very nice voice.
I opened my eyes, and there he was, perched on the edge of the bed, cradling my cheek in his fine, capable palm. Like a dream. A really good dream, too – the type that makes you feel all warm and safe. But, fuzzy as my brain seemed, I was pretty sure I wasn’t still dreaming.
I smiled up at him. “Justin. Sorry about borrowing your bed.”
“How you doin’?” His voice was even nicer when it was low and a bit husky.
“A bit groggy,” I replied.
“Resting's the sort of thing you've got to work up to gradually . . . very dangerous to rest all of a sudden.” His expression was, for once, very hard to read.
Too much going on in that noggin of yours, Boyo? Well, GOOD! Welcome to my world!
Time seemed to hold its breath . . . .
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” he said finally. “I’d have let you sleep if I could. But there’s a new . . . development . . . you need to know about.”
I touched his hand lightly. In gratitude. Surely it was just gratitude? “Okay,” I said softly. “Can you give me two minutes to shake the sleep off?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled and left.
I rose, stretched, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Pulling a pocket mirror from my purse, I touched up my hair and lipstick before sitting down in “my” chair again. I was worried about what was coming, but very glad to have what was clearly, at the least, a couple additional hours of sleep with which to face it. The manner of my waking . . . well. I’d think about that later.
Justin came back in, his lawyer face firmly back in place.
I waved him in. “Let’s hear it, Mr. Abel.” I figured I should do my part to set the tone.
He resumed his seat, looking serious. And seriously like Gregory Peck.
“Half an hour ago, someone left a message on my office voicemail,” he explained. “In light of the message, I returned the call. The long and short of it is that another government has made an offer to supply the People with weapons-grade uranium. It appears they want a piece of the action.”
I could not hide my shock. Who would know that the aliens were even here, much less that Justin was representing them? I took a deep breath, thinking hard. “What can you tell me about this offer? Did the People solicit it in some way? What country is involved, and what are they offering?”
He cocked his head. “My clients won’t entertain the offer unless you clear it. ‘We deal with Jessica James only,’ they said. They didn’t even let me tell them what the offer was.”
“Okay,” I said. That was . . . not exactly surprising. They’d suggested something like that before, but it hadn’t been tested up ’til now. But it was certainly sobering. “Best let me know what the offer is.”
His dark eyes appraised me carefully. “Why? I told you, they won’t consider the offer unless you bring it forward. You can just ignore it if you want.”
Averil Livingston’s words from yesterday morning came back to me. Do they expect you to represent ALL of us?
And my response. Yes. I think that’s exactly what the aliens are expecting.
“I need to know what it is before I make that decision,” I told him.
There was a glimmer of . . . something? . . . in his eye. “Okay. There are things I’m going to tell you that can be shared with the U.S. government, but other things are for your ears only. Can you live with that?”
I thought about that, but didn’t see a lot of choice. “Yes.”
“Okay. What you can pass along to the U.S. government is that the People did not solicit the offer, directly or indirectly. They haven’t communicated with any humans since their arrival, other than you, me, Janet and – briefly, with you present – Dr. Livingston. Now, with Professor Kurokawa and Ms. Harris too – at your specific request. But neither of them has had any outside communications since they came aboard. So the People don’t know how the other country found out about their presence. Much less my own involvement.”
“I . . . Okay,” I said, thinking fast but not very coherently. “I’ll certainly pass that along. And I’ll need to think who I might have told about your involvement. And when. But let’s put that aside for now. What else can you tell me?”
“The rest is just for you. And only because the People trust you, personally. A foreign government is offering to provide four tons of weapons-grade HEU in exchange for one hundred shots like the one you were given, but without the gender change component.”
We looked at each other for a long, long moment. Here it was, the very nightmare scenario I had dreamed up back at Janet’s house, when we were first thinking about whether we could help the aliens. What ghoul thought up this offer? President for life – but a long, long life indeed! My mind was whirling, whirling . . . .
And, like that, I knew what I had to do. “I will bring this proposal to the People. But I need to go back to Washington before I do. What . . . what time is it, down there?”
“Five fifteen in the afternoon,” he replied.
My brain was racing. “Ask the aliens if they can drop me somewhere safely that’s close to a metro station.”
“What’s your plan?”
“I need to see the President. Right away. We need to get a last, best offer, and I think the existence of a little competition gives me what I need to get one.” I found myself standing, suddenly impatient to be gone.
“Let me see what I can do,” he said. “Meantime, I’m guessing you need to make a call or two.” He left.
I called Corbin. “Mr. Corbin – there’s been a leak. Somewhere. But the People have now received a trade offer from another country. I think – I strongly, strongly think – the U.S. needs to cut to Hecuba and put a final offer on the table. I would like an opportunity to meet with the President personally to discuss it.”
“You don’t exist, Ms. James. That’s no less true now than it was two days ago,” he cautioned.
I hadn’t thought of that! But . . . wait! “Mr. Corbin, the People seem to be able to create realistic illusions. They may be able to make me look like someone who actually does exist. Someone who might just be able to walk in to see the President.”
The line was silent for a moment. Then, suddenly, Corbin began to chuckle. “That’s a very interesting idea, Professor! Very interesting indeed! If you could come looking like, say, Dr. Ranveer Singh, I am sure the President would be available to meet with you at 7:00. He has urgent business to discuss with Dr. Singh. Is that satisfactory?”
I was calling to practically demand a meeting with the President of the United States? Had the world gone completely mad? “Entirely satisfactory, Mr. Corbin. How do I get in?”
“I will personally meet you outside the EEOB and bring you in,” he replied. “I’ll see you at, say, ten minutes to seven?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “I’ll be there . . . or, Mr. Singh will be. Sort of. You know what I mean.”
He rang off, and I went to make the arrangements. When they were complete, I went back to the entry room.
Justin came to see me off. His hand came up, almost like it had a mind of its own – and his fingers brushed my cheek again. “You’ll be careful?”
“You mean, apart from when I jump out of an invisible spaceship and plunge to earth, relying on some alien technology no human understands to keep me from pancaking in a kinetic strike?”
He laughed. “Well, when you put it that way . . . .”
“I do.” I touched his cheek as well. Our eyes locked. Probably a trice and a half, this time. Might even have been more. I wish Justin would kiss me.
Oh, but there are so many reasons why that would be a terrible idea! “Open the pod bay door, Worm,” I sighed.
As I began to fall backward, Justin called, “Have fun storming the castle!”
And, once again, I was falling to earth, a warm wind whipping my long, braided hair.
This was . . . nuts.
If buttercups buzzed after the bees,
If ships were on land, and churches at sea . . . .
* * * * *
It was 6:45 and I was almost at the EEOB. The illusion that the People had provided for me was purely visual. I didn’t feel like I was male again, or tall, or even like I was wearing a suit. But that was the image the world would see.
There were a fair number of people on the sidewalks . . . office workers and government types and tourists from Iowa. No one gave me a second glance, which was both disconcertingly strange and strangely disconcerting. In the few weeks I had been Jessica, I’d grown accustomed to being a focus of attention. But a guy walking around in a suit looked pretty inconspicuous. Plenty of suits in this town, despite the steamy weather. If I'd been in the "Room Where it Happened," I thought, the Capitol wouldn't have been located in a malarial swamp!
I turned right on Pennsylvania Avenue and headed toward the place where I had arranged to meet Corbin. When I spotted his distinctive 6’6” frame at the guard station I picked up my pace. There were, unsurprisingly, more people around the closer you got to the White House. Pedestrians only; that section of the street has long been closed to traffic. But that meant that I had to dodge around them to proceed.
One man, comically, went to dodge left around me just as I moved right to dodge around him. We bumped together, and while we bounced apart consistent with Newton’s Third Law of Motion, our relative backward velocities appeared inconsistent with any of the laws of physics I’d ever heard of.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but found myself looking at a pair of the hardest, coldest eyes I had ever seen outside of a nightmare . . . . Despite myself, I stepped back another half pace.
Without warning or change of expression, he raised his right hand and fired a pistol right over my head, inches away from my face. That close to my ears, the sound was excruciating. What on earth was going on?
His hard expression suddenly disappeared, replaced by a look of pure bewilderment. He was still looking shocked when he was tackled from behind. I barely managed to avoid being hit as he flew forward, then went down, his handgun spinning away. A furious Presidential Chief of Staff landed on top of him.
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
If cats should be chased into holes by the mouse . . . .
Additional men were right behind Corbin. I recognized Chester, the gate guard who had been on duty the first day I’d gone inside the EEOB. He helped Corbin get up, while two others kept the gunman down. Not that I thought he would get up on his own. Corbin had the bulk and muscle to go with his height. Anyone he took down would stay down, probably for a long time.
Back on his feet, Corbin barked orders, telling some of the guards to grab the gun and haul the gunman away for questioning. Then he said, “Tyrone, Chester, cover us. We’re going to the White House, Right now! Move, move, move!!!” Putting his hand in the small of my back, he propelled me forward at a very rapid pace.
I could hear sirens coming, but Corbin ignored them. We passed the end of the EEOB and the White House complex was ahead. Corbin swerved, and we were going through a guard gate, fast. Down a path . . . up some stairs . . . through a door . . . and finally, we were under cover.
Corbin slowed, then stopped. He was breathing hard as he let me go.
I felt a bit faint. Moving to a wall, I leaned against it, finding myself gulping for breath. I looked at Corbin.
He gave me a strange look and chuckled through his labored breathing. “You didn’t see Lefors out there, did you?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I just shook my head.
“Oh good. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble. . . .” He paused before continuing. “I’ve never seen anyone look so good after they’ve been shot between the eyes at point blank range. Not that I have much experience with that. Even Baltimore wasn’t that bad. Most nights.” His breathing sounded better.
I shook my head. “He was pointing over my head,” I explained. “He just . . . .”
I stopped. Realization hit me, and I started to laugh, just a little hysterically. I couldn’t quite stop myself.
If Mamas sold their babes to Gypsies
for half a crown . . . .
Corbin looked concerned. “Professor?”
The expression on his face made me laugh higher and harder.
His brows came together. “Jessica!”
I got myself under control enough to say, “The thing is, I’m not six feet tall any more, Mr. Corbin. Not really. It’s an illusion. You might say I’m just drawn this way.”
I heard the sound of women’s heels clicking on tile, coming fast. Tanya Rodriguez-Tolland came spinning around a corner. When she saw Corbin, she broke into a run. “Are you all right?”
He turned just in time to catch her, and gave her a somewhat awkward hug as she sobbed. “I’m fine, Ms. Tolland. Don’t you fret, now!”
She hugged him, crying, but the moment was brief. She pulled away, her eyes still bright. “What on earth were you doing?" she scolded. “Mamie will kill you, you know she will!”
“I expect you’re entirely correct about that,” he said with a smile. “But maybe we can squeeze in just a bit of work before she finishes me off. What do you think?”
She wasn’t impressed with his effort at levity. “What do I think? I think you’re insane! Work? You could have been killed!"
“But I wasn’t,” he said. “Instead – far worse – I have been delayed. I purely detest being late for appointments. It's disrespectful!”
“The late Mr. Corbin!” she replied, vexed.
“It didn’t happen, Ms. Tolland.” His deep voice was surprisingly gentle. “Not today. But the President needs to know what just happened, and why, and he is waiting.” He gave her a long, careful look. “Assuming he doesn’t have a problem with it, will you join us?”
That got her attention. “Yes, sir!”
Corbin smiled. “Then lead on, please. He’s still in the Oval.”
We went back the way Tanya had come, and the twists and turns were bad enough to make me think I’d been too hard on the architect of the EEOB. But it was not long, really, before we were being ushered into one of the most famous rooms in the world.
If summer were spring, and the other way ’round,
then all the world would be upside down . . . .
To be continued . . . . madly.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 18: Indiscretion
There were five people in the room, and I was shocked to discover that I knew them all. President Taryn was sitting in an occasional chair with its back to the Resolute Desk. Energy Secretary Britt and Defense Secretary Bradley shared a couch on the President's left, while General Aguia and Dr. Livingston, the Science Advisor, shared the facing couch on the President’s right, a garish version of the Presidential Seal marring the carpet between them.
As the door closed behind me, I said, “You can drop the illusion, Worm. And stop listening until I contact you.”
Nothing seemed to change as far as I was concerned – except that everyone else seemed startled. I looked at my hands and saw that the illusion had been lifted.
“Shadows avaunt, Jessica’s herself again,” the President said, a smile of child-like wonder on his face.
“Mr. President,” I said.
“Come in, come in,” Taryn waved us forward. “I gather you think it’s time to wrap all of this up. Such a shame. I was having so much fun.”
I sat next to Averil Livingston, Tanya Rodriguez-Tolland sat next to Secretary Bradley, and Luther Corbin took an arm chair opposite the President, situated at the other end of the two couches. What am I doing in this room? I thought.
“Before Professor James begins,” Corbin said, “You should know that someone just attempted to shoot her. Right outside the EEOB. He only failed because she isn’t as tall as the man she was impersonating.”
There were a babble of questions that newsmen asked back in the day – Who? How? Why? – but we obviously had no answers.
The President raised a hand. “Enough, everyone. Mr. Corbin, can you tell us what happened?”
He did, and his explanation was pithy. He managed to refrain from profanity, which was more than I could have done. I was profoundly tired of being shot at.
“Thoughts?” the President asked the group.
Averil looked puzzled. “Is it possible someone was trying to kill Ranveer? I mean . . . that illusion was very good.”
Aguia shook his head. “There would be no reason to expect that Dr. Singh would be there. So unless it was just a random act of violence, I’d say ‘no.’”
Remembering the killer’s eyes, I shivered. “It wasn’t random. He was focused. And his gun was loaded, safety off, and in his hand. He just pulled it from his windbreaker, aimed and fired. I didn’t have time to think.”
“Who else knew that you were meeting, and knew about the disguise?” Aguia asked.
“The aliens, of course. And their lawyer. That’s it on my end,” I responded.
“I only told the President the full story,” Corbin said. “At his request, I informed the rest of you that we would be meeting with Ms. James and why. Except for Mr. Britt, whom I was unable to reach, as I informed the President.”
The President looked sheepish. “I was a bit more loquacious when I talked to you, Grady.”
Britt bristled. “Well, I certainly didn’t tell anybody about the disguise or anything! It was obviously confidential!”
Everyone was looking at him with various degrees of skepticism. Methinks that Grady protesteth too much.
He had the grace to blush. “I mean, no one except the Department’s lawyer, whom I was meeting with when you called!”
“You weren’t in the office when I called you,” Corbin observed. “And you didn’t answer your cell phone.”
Britt flushed. “Are you accusing me of something, Corbin? Because if you are . . . .”
The President intervened. “Grady, stop. No one cares where you were meeting with Gillian, or why. What we need to know is what you told her, and when.”
“That’s confidential!” Britt sputtered.
“Not from me it isn’t,” the President said – mildly enough, under the circumstances. “As you well know. What and when, Grady?”
The two men glared at each other, but a stare-down between the President and someone who serves at his pleasure only ends one way. “Everything, and as soon as I got off the phone,” Britt said. Sounding incredibly defensive, he added, “She needed to know. She’s my lawyer! The alien’s lawyer knew about it, too!”
“Mine didn’t,” the Defense Secretary commented.
“None of mine did, either,” the President said. “’Course, I’ve got so many I can’t keep ’em all straight.”
“Call her now,” Corbin urged Britt. “Have her join us. If you can’t function without her counsel, however can we?”
“See here, Corbin!” Britt began.
“Where?” Corbin asked, rhetorically. Britt’s bluster didn’t appear to impress him much.
The President intervened again. “Go ahead and call her. We need to check each potential leak, stat.”
Looking furious, Britt pulled out his phone and hit speed-dial. After a moment, he said, “No answer. Happy?”
“Pookie?” Bradley, sitting to Britt’s left, was looking over the Energy Secretary’s shoulder.
“Hey! That’s private!!” Britt went from dull iron red to candy-apple red.
“Did you dial the right person, Grady?” Bradley asked, innocently.
“Yes!” Britt snapped. He looked around the room. “What? It’s a joke, okay? Humor, you know? Ha ha?”
“Gillian Dunlop is a ‘Pookie?’ Wow. I did not see that coming!” Bradley’s voice held a note of awe.
“It’s a private joke!” Britt replied hastily. “Very . . . ummm . . . I mean . . . God, don’t tell her!”
“A very inside joke,” Averil said with a slight grin.
“As in, ‘inside your own mind,’ perhaps?” I asked.
“When and where did you leave Ms. Dunlop, Mr. Secretary?” Aguia, clearly, was having no trouble restraining any urge to laugh.
Britt glared at him. “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“Portuguese,” Aguia corrected.
“And surely no one ever expects the Portuguese Inquisition,” the President observed.
“This is complete bullshit!” Britt barked.
For once I agreed with what Britt was saying, though my reasons differed. And I was tired of it. Happily, unlike everyone else in the room, I was not constrained by the Fourth Amendment. I pulled out my phone and hit my own speed dial, pausing only to say “excuse me.”
No doubt this was a major breach of Oval Office protocol. Everyone else in the room suddenly stopped and stared at me. Good!
“Jessica James,” Worm’s voice answered.
“Ensign,” I responded, “One of the people in this room just placed a call to a mobile communications device. Can you determine its current location?”
“Affirmative.”
“Where is it?”
“5.3 miles from your present location, in a political subdivision labeled Commonwealth of Virginia. Old Dominion, the Cavalier State, and the Mother of states, statesmen and Presidents, all alternative names are.”
“Is there a building nearby?” I’d gotten lucky last time.
“Affirmative. The person carrying the device in a building identified as Terminal C, in a complex called the Washington-Reagan National Airport, currently is.”
I thanked the Ensign and ended the call. “She’s in Terminal C at Reagan. Was she planning a trip, Mr. Secretary?”
His ashen face was all the answer anyone needed.
“If you’ll excuse me a moment, Mr. President?” Mr. Corbin asked. At the President’s nod, he stalked over to a side door near the Resolute Desk, growling, “I’ll be back.”
“I’m not entirely sure that was legal,” Bradley said. “But hell, what do I know?”
“Sue me,” I said. “Someone just tried to shoot me – again, for the record, and I’m absolutely keeping track! I’m not waiting around until they figure out what they’re doing wrong.”
“If anyone complains, we’ll have someone look into it,” the President said easily. “In the meantime, is there anything else we should discuss about the attack, or the security leak, at this meeting?” He looked around the room.
“I’m still puzzled by three things,” I said. “How did the other bidder know to contact Mr. Abel? It wasn’t widely-known he was involved. How did Dr. Singh’s agents know where Janet and I were staying? Finally, what’s the connection between Singh, Dunlop, and the other bidder?”
Averil said, “I can answer the first one, I think. You mentioned Mr. Abel when we were playing golf. It came up during yesterday’s meeting – I don’t remember why – but Ms. Dunlop was there when it did.”
Tanya nodded. “I remember that, too. It was close to when we wrapped up – 3:30, 4:00 this morning.”
“The second issue is harder,” the President said. “Mr. Corbin is certain that the only people who knew where you were staying were the members of your security team and their immediate supervisor, Major Case. Nobody else, and they all check out clean as a pack of brand-new golf balls. Luther himself didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President – I’ve got an update on that,” Tanya interjected. “Someone planted a tracking device on one of the security detail’s vehicles. Mr Corbin got the report just before he went to meet Ms. James.”
“Ah!” Aguia said. “That’s interesting.”
Britt was chewing on the end of a pen. “I . . . ah . . . don’t know if it helps. But certainly Gillian and Singh know each other. Professionally. There’s a fair bit of overlap between my department and DHS on the science and technology side.”
“Not unexpected, certainly,” the President said. “As for the connection between Singh and the bidder . . . We do have something on that, but I’m afraid it’s classified. At least, it gives us a strong suspicion who the bidder is likely to be.” Looking at me, he added, “But perhaps you already know?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I was just told that it’s another government.”
“What can you tell us about the offer?” he inquired.
“Very little, I’m afraid,” I responded. “Whoever made it knew enough about what was going on to contact Mr. Abel. That was around 4:30 this afternoon. Apparently, the aliens didn’t solicit the offer; the only humans they’ve spoken to are me and Janet, Justin, Averil, and now Troi Harris and Daichi Kurokawa.”
“Do you know the contents of the offer?” Taryn asked.
“Yes – but I was given that information on the condition that I not share it.”
Secretary Bradley gave a grunt; Britt looked like he’d inadvertently sucked on a grapefruit.
Averil sighed. “So you’ve got what, we’ve got who, and neither of us can share information!”
“But at least we’ve got third base covered,” Bradley said.
“Life’s a bitch, sure enough,” the President said, philosophically. “But – to take nothing from your overall assessment, Jack – there’s plenty that we do know. For starters, we know they know we know they know about the aliens.”
“Tom, don’t do that. My brain hurts!” Bradley moaned.
“Nonsense, Jack!” Aguia said. “You were my top student in logic.” Looking at the President, he added, “By now, they know we know that, too.”
Britt looked lost. “Of course they know about the aliens; they made an offer. And we know that, because Ms. James told us. They know we know, because I stupidly told Gillian. We can surmise she passed it on, since she’s trying to run, but how would they . . . .” He paused, looking a bit green.
Aguia said. “Gillian being the conduit might explain how they know we know about their offer. But their sending a hit man to stop Jessica from attending this meeting establishes the fact of their knowledge, irrespective of how they found out. And by now they have to know we’re aware they made the attempt – and that it failed.”
The President continued, “I think we can also assume that the other bidder knew what our offer was, since Gillian was in the conference where it was hammered out.”
“Arguing against the proposal the entire time,” Dr. Livingston added. “Mercifully, Toni Shakon was there to keep her in line.”
Britt looked miserable.
“Did you tell her about the aliens’ counter-offer from earlier in the day?” Aguia asked Britt.
The Secretary thought about the question carefully. “I didn’t right away. She was in another meeting when I got the word, so I met first with Hix and Squires. I told Gillian later – and I was with her from the time I told her until I got the President’s call about this meeting.”
“What’s the earliest time she would have known that the aliens could carry twenty tons?” Aguia pressed.
“A bit after 5:00 pm, I think.”
“So, it’s likely that they structured their bid to be better than ours in some way, but they probably had no reason to overshoot our offer by too much,” the President suggested.
Aguia shook his head. “That’s probably true with respect to the quantity of U-235, but there’s no reason to suppose that their offer focused on either battery tech or fusion.”
“Now there’s a charming thought.” The President looked thoughtful. “Well . . . I can see why you suggested we make a last best offer, Jessica. But you didn’t need to come here for that. Was there something else you wanted to say?”
I nodded. “Mr. President, I want to urge you to end all of this bidding, right now. The aliens made a counter-offer. The battery tech – with the possible benefit of boosting the efficiency of photovoltaics - in exchange for twenty tons of weapons-grade HEU. You should just accept the offer, sir. Even if they’d take less, you don’t want them to. If you agree, they have no more space to take anyone else’s material. They’ll have no reason to even consider other bids.”
Secretary Britt bristled like a toilet-bowl brush. “Twenty tons!!! That’s . . . .”
“Twenty tons we don’t have to store, guard, and down-blend,” Livingston finished. “It’s waste, Mr. Britt! Just waste! It’s like they offered to pay us for the privilege of cleaning our septic tank, and instead of saying ‘thank you very much,’ we’re worried sick that someday – just maybe! – we might have a craving for a shit sandwich!”
Britt snapped, “Well, we have to consider the possibility! We’re fiduciaries!”
“Oh, that word!” murmured Bradley.
“Okay, Grady. Averil. We’re just rehashing now,” the President said. “I’ve heard both arguments already and you may rest assured I understand them.”
“What about the other conditions, Jessica?” the Defense Secretary asked.
“I recommend you drop both of them,” I responded. “You know you can trust the aliens. They’ve shown it time and time again. And, while I’m not an economist, if I understand the analysis done by the Energy Department, the U.S. government still comes out ahead even if it doesn’t keep the Intellectual Property rights.”
The President looked like a hound dog that had caught a scent. “Didn’t the aliens indicate they were flexible on the intellectual property issue?” His blue eyes were bright, clear, and very focused. On me.
Don’t shade the truth, Averil had warned.
“They said they were open to discussing it,” I admitted.
Britt leapt back into the fray. “We absolutely should stick to our guns on this point. There’s no reason they should care, and the value to the U.S. Government is incalculable. Who knows? Maybe we won’t even need taxes anymore! I mean . . . .” His excited ramblings stopped and he looked, puzzled, at his boss, who was ignoring him.
The President was just looking at me levelly. The silence stretched.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Two points, sir. If you have a proposal on that, then you’re still negotiating. If you drop it, you're just accepting their counter-offer, without any other conditions. There’s nothing more to discuss.” I paused, looking to see if that made an impression.
President Taryn’s expression didn’t change. “And the second point?”
I took a deep breath. “Maybe they don’t care, Mr. President, although they didn’t say that. But I do. I have to go back there and I want to tell them that they shouldn’t bother negotiating with anyone else. What's my argument? American exceptionalism? The whole concept would be meaningless to them. That it’s my country, and I like it best? Pure self-dealing. Because we gave the world Scooby Doo?
“Now you’re talking!” said Bradley.
I shook my head. “What is it with that show? Anyway, they don’t care about any of that. They’re aliens! I want to tell them you have asked for something that will be used to benefit all of our species, not just our own country. That you aren’t looking for a parochial or sectarian advantage, much less a personal one. I want you to give me the ammunition to make that argument, and make it stick!”
“But why shouldn’t we make money off the formula? We’re buying it with our uranium!” Britt looked exasperated. “This isn’t effing Charles Dickens World!”
“Better that than Westworld!” Livingston rejoined.
The President just looked at me, saying nothing. Weighing my words.
“Is this about them, Jessica? Or, is it about you?” The President’s voice was soft.
“I don’t know if it will matter to them,” I replied. “I think it will – they prize unity, and one of the things that makes them distrust us so much is that we are divided among ourselves. I want to change their minds – at least, give them something to think about. You have to admit, they haven’t exactly seen us at our best.”
Every eyeball in the room was on me. I could almost feel them, burning into me. Urging me to let it go. It’s a private crusade . . . . Besides, everything I’d seen suggested that the President is a good man. A fair man. He wouldn’t price the IP out of range of normal people!
But then I thought about what Britt had said. He might be a voice in the wilderness right now, but today’s crazy Uncle could easily become tomorrow’s catastrophe. We might not even have to pay taxes anymore! Who could resist the urge to maximize revenue from the formula? And what a powerful rallying cry it would make, for a demagogue!
We would get the technology sooner or later; the aliens were convinced of that. But we needed it now, not in fifty years – or even ten. It would be decisive in the race to decarbonize our energy sources, but only if it got widespread market penetration worldwide, and in near-record time. The people who understood this area – Livingston, Grimm, even Singh – understood that.
“Mr. President,” I said finally. “The aliens will ask my view. I’ll give it to them, just as I’ve given it to you. I can’t say what they’ll do with it.”
To my immense surprise, Taryn smiled. Not the child-like smile of a moment before; it was something softer, kinder, more understanding. The look of a man who’d been around the block a few times, but hadn’t let its ugly side stain his soul. “Honesty! That’s one hell of a dirty trick, Jessica!”
“Who can find a virtuous woman? She is far more precious than rubies,” Aguia quoted.
I dropped my eyes. The day I thought, is getting mighty strange.
“Don’t let it go to your head,’ the President said in a lighter tone. “My friend Mr. Corbin has another quote he likes to trot out from time to time that also fits.”
Bradley snorted. “Indeed, he does! ‘I beseech thee, in the very bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.’”
I smiled. “That’s singing from my songsheet, Mr. Secretary, even if Cromwell wasn’t one to follow his own advice. I’ve spent decades second-guessing every thought, testing every word I write. It’s the habit of a lifetime – sort of a factory setting for any academic. I’ll do it here, too . . . but I’ll still give them the best advice I can.”
“I understand,” the President said. “Let me talk with my team, and we’ll get you an answer. Realistically, it’s going to take a couple hours, though. We might not be done until tomorrow. Do you want to stay in the building?”
Before I could reply, Aguia caught the President’s eye. “If I may make a suggestion?”
Taryn nodded.
“I honestly think Jessica would be safer if she was back on the aliens’ ship, or else someplace we didn’t know about. We can’t be sure that Singh and Dunlop don’t have other allies. The less anyone on earth knows about where Jessica goes after she leaves this office, the better.”
“The fact that I can’t ensure the security of a guest makes me very, very unhappy, Stanley,” the President growled. “We are, by God, going to get to the bottom of these conspiracies!”
Aguia withstood the President’s ire with complacency and a raised eyebrow.
In the end, it was Taryn, not Aguia, who looked away. “Until we’re confident that we’ve done that, though – and count me among the skeptics – Stanley’s probably right, Jessica. I’m so sorry. It seems like you’ve really put your head in the lion’s jaws. But I think you’re safer right now without whatever ‘protection’ we might provide.”
I was surprised to feel both relieved and ready to be gone. I was missing something important. I could feel it, percolating right on the edge of consciousness. If I could just have some time to think! “That’s quite all right, Mr. President. Perhaps if someone could show me to an empty office where I might make a few private calls, then direct me how to get out of this maze, I’d appreciate it.”
“I can do that,” Tanya volunteered.
The President stood and walked me to the door. “‘When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?’ You know it?”
I smiled. “Of course. Cervantes at his best.”
“Take care of yourself, will you? The world needs your kind of madness – in small doses!”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
Tanya led me out, past the presently deserted anteroom where the President’s assistant normally sits, then down a hallway. We turned a corner. In the middle of another hallway, an old and once-familiar sight made me pause. Into a nearby phone booth . . . .
“Hold on, Tanya,” I said. “This will do nicely. Just tell me how to get out when I’m done, and I’ll let you get back to your meeting.”
She looked a bit conflicted – she was supposed to escort me out – but she saw the sense of what I was asking and gave me the information I needed. Then she turned and walked briskly back the way she came.
As soon as she rounded a corner, I stepped into the wooden enclosure, closed the door, and placed a call.
* * * * *
Five minutes later, Tanya Rodriguez-Tolland left for the day and walked with her customary briskness across LaFayette Square to the imposing Renaissance facade of the Hay-Adams Hotel. But upon entering, she hesitated, looked around, and found an unoccupied arm chair amid the arches, coffered ceilings and mahogany of the lobby.
“What’s the matter with this town,” she grumbled to herself before settling into the chair. She crossed her legs, rested her hands in her lap, and stared across the room, lost in thought . . . .
* * * * *
“If Manet painted you, he’d have called it The Brown Study.” The young man was poised, well-dressed, well-spoken, and very much blocking my view of nothing in particular.
I focused on him. “He did, you know. It’s in an art gallery somewhere. It’s a masterpiece, and you should definitely go see it. This very instant – waste not a moment!”
He chuckled. “That obvious, was I?”
I smiled, but declined to engage further. Instead I made shooing motions with both hands.
He laughed and left.
A voice behind me said, “You should get a pair of earbuds. And maybe pretend to read. The combo usually works.” The speaker was a young woman, fairly attractive, and evidently experienced in the fine art of shooing.
I thanked her with a smile, then turned back to my thinking. Maybe I should have asked Worm to make me look like someone inconspicuous. Like James Marshall Wainwright, I thought with a smile, though he would have had no business wandering around the White House. But apparently Tanya was too attractive to be left alone to think.
Diddle loo do, diddle loo do, diddle loo do.
I groaned. Fifteen minutes! I just needed fifteen minutes! “Hello?”
“This is Jessica James, no?” The voice was heavily – almost comically – accented.
I responded ironically. “Nyet. Is Natasha. What can I do for you, Boris?”
The voice chuckled. “‘Boris’ will do. You have humor, wit, and, I hear . . . .”
“ . . . . Very little patience,” I finished for him, in my normal voice. “I repeat: What can I do for you?”
“My government would like to make offer to your friends. All twenty tons, you understand? All we ask is one youthening shot – just one! – and the secret of either their stealth technology or their tractor beam. You see? Much better than either of other offers.”
“Ah . . . so, you represent a new bidder?” Then who was the bidder that contacted Justin?
“Correct, correct. New – and improved!”
I snorted. “Now with real leprechaun parts? Well, alright, ‘Boris.’ Whatever. I’ll pass your offer along to . . . to my friends. Can I reach you at this number?”
“Wait, my Natasha. Not so fast! We do not want you to simply pass along offer. We want you to recommend it. Strongly, yes? If offer is accepted, my government will pay you thirty million American dollars. For your efforts”
“Let me guess . . . if I act now, you’ll also provide me with six Ginzu knives and a comprehensive dental plan?”
“Please, Natasha. Is not kiddie show. Thirty million dollars.”
“Is every day a no-brainer for you?” I asked caustically. “I told you I’ll pass along your offer, and I will. But forget about the bribe. You can’t buy me.”
“Everyone can be bought, my Natasha. For some, it takes carrot. For others, it takes fear of sticks. For your own sake – and for sake of those you care about – take carrot.”
My blood ran cold. That was the answer, and it had been staring me in the face the whole time. I hadn’t seen it, because I hadn’t wanted to see it. I could hear his voice now, quoting Paul Simon – “All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” It applied to women too, I guess.
“Natasha, my dahlink? You are still there, no?”
Singh’s goons found our safehouse with a tracking device. When I called Grant for help, I hadn’t bothered to give him directions. I’d simply assumed he would know. But Corbin, who’d set it up, had even kept himself out of the loop. Grant hadn’t been told.
And now he had Janet.
“Natasha . . . I’m waiting. I apologize for fright, but these are, you say, ‘big leagues,’ yes? When stakes are high, games get rough.”
“I’ll pass along your ‘offer,’” I ground out. “But you will fucking eat your threats!”
“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” His voice lost most of its exaggerated accent. It was soft. Dangerous.
But I was boiling mad and filled with hot-blooded, youthful recklessness. “Mne póhuj, shakal!”
He refused to respond to my insult. “If you really don’t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.”
“Oh, now you’re giving personal advice? Well get this through your thick, swollen head, ‘Dear Abby!’ Back off the threats, or no deal. Oh . . . and you can shove your frickin’ bribe so far up that tight ass of yours that your ears shit greenbacks!!! Got it?” I was hard-pressed to keep my voice low, and I was afraid I would be shouting soon. I ended the call.
“Worm,” I said, “Urgent! Please block all communications to or from Mr. Grant, and let me know who just called me, and whom he calls next!” I got up and went straight to the elevators. I hadn’t reached them before Worm called.
“Jessica James. We have Dukkov Grant’s communications blocked. Caller ‘Yuri Raskolnikov’ identified is. ‘Trade Specialist’ for embassy of Russian Federation is listed. Attempting to call Dukkov Grant, he is currently.”
“Thank you, Worm!” I said fervently. I stepped into an empty elevator and hit the button for the third floor, where I knew Janet and Grant were staying. “Drop the illusion, please. I need to get Janet away. Can you make a call to Grant’s phone a minute after I go in, making it appear to come from Raskolnikov?”
“Affirmative.”
“Great. If Janet and I leave the room, please disguise us as a random male and female couple. But . . . if we jump out the window together, will you catch us?”
“Strange species you are, Jessica James. We will – but better would be not to make pick-up visible so much.”
“Understood. It’s a last resort, I promise!”
The doors opened and I stepped out, looking like myself again. I walked down the hallway quickly, my strappy sandals barely slowing me down.
Down a long hallway, turn . . . and there it was. I took a steadying breath and knocked.
“Go away.” Grant’s voice, as full of gravel as a cement-mixer.
“It’s Jessica.”
“Prove it,” he replied. Was that . . . humor?
Despite myself, I smiled. “Wyrd oft nered unfaegne, eorl, ponne his ellen deah.”
“Yep, that would be Jessica,” he responded, opening the door. “Come on in.”
Janet was leaning against the doorway to one of the bedrooms, looking . . . Holy shit! Yes, she was looking! With Grant?!!!
“Can’t you go a day or two without gettin’ shot, or shot at?” she asked, sounding exasperated. “I leave you safe and sound with a bunch of crazy aliens on an invisible spaceship, and you still manage it!”
“How did you hear about that?” I was starting to lose track of who should know what and when.
“A little birdie told me,” she said. “Come on, have a seat. Tell us what you’ve been up to.”
This was going to be harder than I had thought! My whirling brain came up with no better options than she was suggesting. I took an upholstered chair in the sitting area, and Janet sat on the couch across from me.
Grant sat next to her.
“Well . . .” What could I say, safely? The Russians already knew about the other offers. And about the alien ship’s maximum capacity. “Another country made a trade offer to the aliens. I arranged to go to the White House to urge them to make a final offer. But before I got to the building, someone tried to shoot me. Corbin took him down, personally.”
“I wouldn’t want to get tackled by Luther Corbin,” Grant said, with real feeling.
“I don’t think he got up on his own steam afterward,” I agreed.
“Did you just go straight from almost getting shot into another meetin’?” Janet asked.
“Well, it seemed a shame to go to all that trouble just to turn back,” I demurred. Demurely, of course.
Grant’s phone chose that moment to go off. Mentally, I tensed, getting ready for action.
He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and declined the call without comment. “You were saying?”
Shit! I’d been counting on him taking the call in one of the bedrooms! Now what? “Actually, Janet . . . I was wondering whether I might talk with you privately.” I gave Grant an apologetic smile. “Female problem, I’m afraid.”
Janet looked at me fondly. “There’s no need for that, Jess.”
I gaped at her.
Grant chuckled. “You should see yourself, Jessica! Honest. Whatever crazy, daring escape you’ve got planned, you don’t need to do it. You're safe, Janet’s safe, you can both leave here as soon as we’re done talking – and we won’t be long. Okay?”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Forgive me if I don’t seem very trusting just at the moment. As Janet just pointed out, I seem to be living in someone else’s bad first-person shooter game.”
Grant nodded. “Understood. But that was Singh’s gang, and he’s working for the ChiComs. Has been for a while. That’s why I got assigned to watch him – it was a counterintelligence op. I know a lot about what they’re up to, but I don’t always find out in real time. I only heard about the hit after it had failed.”
“But you work for the Russians!” I accused.
“Them too,” he agreed. Like he was commenting on the weather. “I have, all my life. It’s why I joined the CIA to begin with. And I’ve spent twenty years building my reputation, doing my day job perfectly while sending back critical information.”
“Well, isn’t that special?” I looked at Janet. “How can you just sit there?”
“’Cuz I’ve heard the rest an’ you haven’t. Hear him out!”
“Try to understand,” he said softly. “In my own way, I’m a patriot. And I like to think I’ve done good work for both my countries, over the years. I never worked the Russia desk. My goal, always, was to help Russia – not to hurt America. Here, I was able to make sure that Russia had an opportunity to bid for alien technology. And why shouldn’t it? Why should America alone get the chance?”
“The content of their offer should suggest an answer to that question,” I retorted.
He shook his head. “Countries often squander the best opportunities. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have them. If, despite my advice, the Kremlin fumbles this chance, they are fools. But . . . what they choose to do with any of the information I provide is not my responsibility.”
“‘Once ze rockets go up, who knows where zey come down? It’s not my department,’ says Werner von Braun,” I quoted.
“Touché,” Grant said. “Except this time that jackass Yuri Timofeyevitch decided I should play field officer and hold Janet hostage to create leverage. On a whim. Just blow twenty years of cover for something that was sure to backfire . . . and threaten harm to people I had come to care about. That made it my responsibility.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
He gave me a strange look. “Raskolnikov is a full Colonel in the FIS. He can sound like a buffoon when it suits his purposes – it often does – but trust me, he’s a very dangerous man. I just said, ‘give the word.’ That bought time, I hope. And, after I got off the call, I told Janet. Did you allow him to believe you were interested in the more conventional bribe?”
My face flushed scarlet.
“Told him where to stick it, dincha?” Janet crowed. Looking at Grant, she said, “Pay up!”
“Oh, behave!” he said.
Janet smirked. “Not if I can help it!”
“I would certainly pay, had I been so foolish as to take your wager,” he said. “But Jessica’s refusal means Raskolnikov will move soon – the more so in that he was unable to reach me just now. You should go. If you would be so kind, though, hit me over the head with something before you leave.”
I looked at Janet.
She looked at me.
We looked helpless.
“Never mind,” he said, chuckling. He stood. “Whatever self-inflicted wound I concoct will look more convincing than anything a pair of eminent humanities professors can manage. Probably why I like you both so much. Now, scoot!”
Janet rose and faced him with her trademark grin. “You say anythin’ about how it was a business doin’ pleasure with me, and I’ll give you a dent that even the old KGB would credit!”
He gave her a look of such tenderness I could scarcely believe it of him. “You know better than that,” he chided. “Being around you . . . pleases me.”
I said, “Mr. Grant . . . Earl. I’m sorry. I’ll have to tell Corbin. There’s nothing left for you here.”
He smiled. “I knew that when I told Janet. It’s okay. Past time I went home.” He pulled Janet in, gave her a gentle kiss, and said, “Go now. Be safe, Zharptitsa!”
She grabbed her purse and we both walked out, leaving Grant behind.
We were halfway down the hallway before I said, “He calls you ‘Firebird?’”
“Don’t even start, you . . . .” She looked at me and stumbled.
“Keep walking. Some illusions, courtesy of Worm.” I continued walking.
To all appearances, a darkly attractive, bearded man, more-or-less my prior age, quickly caught up with me. Looking down, I could see that my own disguise was female. Worm’s sense of humor? Nah. He didn’t have one.
We got into an elevator heading down, with a woman, maybe forty, shepherding a couple teenagers. She did a double-take when she saw us. “Oh my God!!! Keanu Reeve and Carrie-Anne Moss! I can’t believe this is happening to me!”
“Mommmm!” hissed her son.
“Soooo embarrassing!” her daughter said, disgusted.
The woman looked at once angry, mortified, and incredulous. “You kids have no idea!!”
I felt her pain, in so very many ways. I reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s okay,” I said.
“Keanu” looked sympathetic, but wisely stayed silent. Worm’s illusion didn’t affect our voices.
As we stepped into the lobby, I murmured “Just keeping moving!”
Our arrival seemed to deaden every noise and attract every eyeball – exactly what I wanted to avoid! Then the hubbub began.
“Is that who I think it is?”
“He’s even wearing the duster!”
“Do you see who he’s with?”
“There is no spoon!”
“Maybe they’re making another movie together!”
“Wasn’t wild about their last one . . . .”
“Hush; I’d watch Keanu even if he was just sweeping a floor!”
“Damn! She’s still fire!”
“You know that road!”
Two men in suits at a table near the front entrance barely gave us a look before going back to their papers, but everyone else thought we were just fascinating.
Fortunately, our purposeful stride discouraged people from coming up to us. The doorman practically simpered as he let us out. I saw a cab discharging an irate fare and flagged it. I tried desperately to remember something about Washington, D.C., but all I could think of in that instant was an old scandal. “The Watergate, please,” I said.
We were soon driving up Pennsylvania Avenue, too petrified about being recognized to say anything. But as we started to drive through a small park, I had the driver stop and let us out. I paid cash. When he drove off, we walked over to a tree that provided a bit of shade.
“Worm . . . those faces were a bit too recognizable. Please – don’t take images from People Magazine! Make us look like . . .” my mind spun . . . “uh . . . Troi Harris and Colonel Kurtz.”
The change was so fast as to startle me, even though I expected it.
“Neat trick,” Janet replied. “But, Worm. The uniform will attract attention. Could you put me in blue jeans, sneakers and a light cotton shirt?”
Worm adjusted. I wouldn’t have picked that particular shade of coral, but it wasn’t worth arguing about.
“That looks like part of G.W. across the street,” Janet said. “I gave a lecture there, years ago. I know there’s a metro stop. Let’s put a few more miles between us and all this!”
A few minutes later, we got on an orange line train. We kept quiet, since there were still plenty of riders. Randomly, we got off at Ballston.
“I could sure use some food,” I said, suddenly aware that I hadn’t eaten in what felt like forever. My body was young, healthy, and seventeen, but I was abusing it terribly. And that didn’t even count getting shot.
It was 9:30 and the area didn’t look promising. But we found a place that was still open with a little searching.
“Rus-Uz?” I asked, dubiously.
“Any port in a storm, girl. You need somethin’,” Colonel Janet admonished.
They had a quiet table outdoors that was perfect. The hostess seated us and vanished.
I looked at the menu and grimaced. “Not much in the mood for Russian food!”
“I am.” Janet grinned. “But suit yourself: the ‘Uz’ is for Uzbekistan. I think they were nomads, so they probably eat goat.”
When the waiter came, I opted for a “Kazan Kabob,” and hoped I would recognize the meat.
Janet, perhaps just to get my goat, went with blini and borsch. “No soup for you!” she said.
“What?”
“Okay,” she grinned at me. “Spit it out now. You’ve been stewin’ so long even your carrots are mush!”
“You and Grant?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, girl!” The grin didn’t leave her face, but it did soften. “Look, I’m not crazy enough to believe he was besotted or overwhelmed by my sex appeal. He’s a strong, good lookin’ man in his mid-forties and I’ve got fifteen years on him. But we appreciated each other – a lot – and it was a pretty damned stressful day for both of us. One thing kinda led to another.”
“I . . . honestly. I don’t know what to say.” I thought I managed a pretty neutral tone. Making allowances for circumstances, of course.
“If you’re lookin’ for a recommendation, how ’bout, ‘Oh, darlin’, I’m so happy for you. That’s great. I really am. You finally got laid properly. That’s so sweet.’”
I was incredulous. It wasn’t her age. Janet wasn’t “good looking for sixty,” she was good looking, period. And whether it was her students, her temperament, or some combination of the two, she looked only a couple years older than Grant – and acted younger still. They were just so very unlike each other . . . not to mention the minor fact that he was a Russian double agent! “Was it before, or after . . . ?”
“Before or after he told me?”
I nodded.
“As a matter of fact, it was!” The grin was back. “Look, we were in bed when he got the call. He went into the other room to take it. Came back, fifteen minutes later, absolutely spittin’ ground glass mad, and told me the whole story. I was pretty ripped myself, at first. But we sort of kissed and made up.”
I smiled. “And in the role of Pussy Galore . . . .”
She laughed. “Hey, I’ll take it! . . . . Look, Jess, he didn’t seduce me from my allegiance and I didn’t seduce him from his. I can ‘hate the game without hatin’ the playa.’ We had a moment, and I had a most excellent adventure, with the added bonus of not havin’ to worry about gettin’ pregnant. So, yay. No regrets, and back to work we go.”
“Just don’t start singing ‘Hi Ho,” I warned her.
“Long as you don’t start usin’ it as a greetin’,” she growled in return.
My eyes crossed and I giggled. Janet was still very much Janet.
The waiter brought food, which was either excellent or seemed so just because I was so hungry.
I turned the conversation back to Grant. “So, he’s been spying on Singh, whom the government suspected of working for China?”
“Right,” Janet replied. “He’s got so many bugs on Singh that a DDT bath wouldn’t make a dent. So he knew about Singh and Dunlop, and about Singh and the Chinese. He knew about our offer, and he found out about the alien’s counteroffer and the Chinese offer around 5:30 or so. He had that feed goin’ to that Yuri guy as well, so that’s why he got the call that had him so worked up. But the boys over in the Kremlin must have been primed, since they were able to get an offer out within a couple hours of gettin’ the news.”
“Dictatorships can move quickly, when they want to,” I said pointedly.
“I haven’t forgotten what Russia is,” Janet said tartly.
“I know you haven’t . . . and look. I’m sorry. I don’t know why it hit me like this. I should be delighted. I am delighted. But . . . Janet, I was so worried. Scared shitless. I thought . . . I thought we might have to throw ourselves out of a window to get away from him. And there you were in his bed!”
“Technically, I’m pretty sure he was in mine. I think. But never mind.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Have I finally succeeded in making James Marshall Wainwright jealous? Now that he’s over-the-top in both the ‘female’ and ‘heterosexual’ departments?”
“Janet! It’s not that!”
“Isn’t it?” She cocked her head and gave me a skeptical look. “I’m a bit rusty, for certain, but I think I recognize that green tinge.”
I took a look under my hood, and found I was maybe a bit less sure than I would like to be. “Umm. I don’t think it’s that. Really, I don’t. But . . . I don’t know. I’m kind of twisted in emotional knots today.”
“Well, I can see that.” She continued to give me a measuring look, until finally she said, “What’s your plan? Now that we’ve got you fed?”
“I’ve got to call Corbin.” I gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”
She waved away my apology. “I know that. So does Grant. ‘The Colonel’s got to know,’ and all that. Honestly, I appreciate your doin’ it, since I’d have to tell him if you didn’t. But I meant, after that?”
“I’ve got to head back to the ship. I’ve got an idea to propose to the aliens, which will hopefully stop the nonsense from our various bidders.”
“Who’s doin’ the negotiatin’? Worm, or the big man?” she asked.
“Neither – they’re having Justin negotiate for them. He’s been with them a couple days – he even has a room on the ship.”
“No shit!” Janet looked first surprised, then pleased. “That was pretty clever of them, you ask me.”
She grew quiet and the silence stretched, broken only by the background sounds of traffic, cutlery on stoneware, and cicadas masticating local vegetation, their red eyes gleaming evilly in the reflected light. We were lost in our own thoughts when the waiter cleared our plates.
She set her wine glass down. “So. You’re going back up there, huh?”
“Yeah, I think I’d better,” I sighed.
“For the night?”
“Yeah?” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“And Justin’s got himself a room on board?”
“Yeah . . . JANET!”
She grinned. “Did I ever tell you about the trouble with tribbles?”
. . . . To be continued. Decisively.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 19: Profit and Loss
“Come on, Janet! You love flying!” The note of desperation in my voice was not, I thought, helping my case.
“Not this time. I’ve had a hard day, ya know?” She grinned wickedly, no doubt reflecting on her strenuous afternoon exercise. “Troi’s offer of a genuine bed is too good to pass up, and Worm and company’ll keep watch for us. We’ll be fine ’til morning. . . . Besides. Three’s a crowd and you know it!”
“You, Troi and Daichi are all staying at her place in Sterling. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s three people!”
She just shook her head, shit-eating grin firmly affixed to her face. “Nice try, girl. Now stop. You just faced down the KGB – well, the FIS, but whatever. Met with the freakin’ President of the United States. Again. Oh, and survived bein’ shot at. Also again. You can handle Justin Abel.”
“That’s different! You know it is!”
“You mean that a Prof so calm in battle, even her armor doesn’t rattle, faces a lawyer petrified with fright?” Janet’s singing was surprisingly tuneful.
Also, annoying. “Janet!”
“Right!” she replied. “But, not good, Jess. I know you’re confused and conflicted about your feelings, but the last thing you need is training wheels or a chaperone. You’ve spent enough time in that new body of yours that it won’t completely overwhelm your sixty-year-old brain – unless you want it to. Which you might. And if that happens . . . well, that’s why I got you supplies.”
I turned scarlet. She’d insisted that we walk into a CVS in Ballston that was open late, and she’d shocked me by buying several packets of condoms. I had at least succeeded in steering her to the self-checkout area!
It was getting on toward midnight now and we were both hound-dog tired. On top of everything else, I’d spent half an hour on the phone with Luther Corbin, filling him in on the situation with Grant and the odious sonabavich Raskolnikov (though, consistent with how the People had asked me to treat the Chinese offer, I did not divulge the Russian trade proposal). Not only that, I still had work to do when I got to the ship. It was time to stop stalling. “Okay. I’ll go. But I’ll get you back for this, Janet Seldon!”
“That sounds like fun!” She gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, “Go on now. Get the job done, and have fun doin’ it!”
I stepped back and took a deep breath. “Beam me up, Worm. And drop the illusion.” As I floated up into the sky, I thought, I will never get used to this!
Moments later, I was back in what Justin called the “foyer” of the alien ship, though I thought of it as the hold. My strappy sandals had no sooner hit the deck than I was wrapped in a powerful embrace.
“Jessica! Damn it! Would you stop trying to get yourself killed!” Justin’s voice was deep and, in the moment, husky.
I was, finally, in his arms! All of my resolve melted in a heartbeat. I rested my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arms around his chest, splaying my hands across his broad back. He felt so good. Warm and solid and strong . . . . I felt myself shaking as the events of the day caught up with me.
He stroked my hair with his right hand while his left, motionless, rested low on my back, holding me anchored in place.
Not that I wanted to go anywhere.
He moved first, placing a strong, capable hand on each of my now slender shoulders and moving me back gently. Just far enough that he could look into my eyes.
We were separated by inches. I could feel the heat radiating from his body. See the care and concern in his dark eyes. The longing that he had tried so hard to bury. That we both had. Finally – finally! – he bent, his lips parting . . . .
“Excuse interruption, Attorney Justin Abel. Jessica James. Elder Mission Leader to you speak wishes. But . . . perhaps . . . you require first time to ‘vody-oh-doh-doh?’”
GODDAMMIT!!!!!!! Couldn’t we at least vody-oh?
We both leaped back, startled and – at least in my case – a bit embarrassed. “No, no. That’s quite all right, Ensign,” I said, hurriedly. “Ah . . . interesting choice of phrase. Archaic, in 2022.”
“Says the woman who quotes Chaucer.” Justin lips – which I had come that close to kissing! – quirked into an ironic smile.
“Doesn’t everyone?” I asked, innocently. With a sigh, I turned back to Worm. “Anyhow – yes. I very much want to talk to the Elder.”
Sounding suddenly animated, Worm said, “Come, we must bustle!”
Justin snorted. “Oh good. I like bustling.” Sounding resigned, he added, “Lead on, Ensign.”
“Walk this way,” Worm said.
I followed Worm out, heading to the area of the ship that the aliens had given the appearance of the bridge from the original Star Trek. I was very conscious of Justin’s presence at my back.
“Looks like the gang’s all here,” I said when we entered. “Don’t you guys ever rest?”
“Sleep we do,” Worm said. “Perchance to dream, we do not.”
The Elder in the Captain's chair began to speak, and I waited for the Siri translation to kick in. Eventually, the speakers in the cabin began. “Jessica James. We grow ever more concerned. In the brief time you have been gone, another human attempted to terminate your sentient state and you and Professor Seldon required numerous optical illusions just to survive. Is the irrationality of your species contagious?”
After the day I’d had, I could see his point, though I had no intention of saying so. “No, sir. It is simply that your arrival, with the potential advantages trade with you might secure, exacerbates existing tensions among different sub-groups of our species.”
Behind me, Justin said, “People don’t really talk that way, you know.”
“No.” My syntax tended to slip into “distinguished professor” mode when I was tired. “But they think that way.”
“Uhhh . . . the ideas . . . maybe?” Justin responded. “But I don’t imagine most people use those words even in their heads!”
I returned my attention to the Elder, who was listening as Siri translated our words into what sounded like clicks. “If you have spent time with Ms. Harris and Professor Kurokawa, you will know there is more to our species than the foolishness you’ve witnessed from us concerning your trade proposal.”
Siri translated his reply. “The members of your species are most unlike each other. It gives us concern . . . but . . . also, as you suggest, some scope for individual excellence. We must consider this, during our rest time.”
Rest time! Just hearing the words made me want to lie down. Instead, I said, “I think I have a strategy to bring our negotiations to a close quickly and without further . . . ah . . . unpleasantness.”
“Sock it to me,” Worm said brightly.
“That would be a most welcome change,” the Elder added. If he were being ironic, Siri’s bland cheerfulness masked it.
“We have offers now from representatives of three countries,” I explained. “Two were provided by telephone, one to me and one to Mr. Abel. I also have a telephone number for Mr. Corbin, representing the United States. I want to send a text to all three contacts, setting out conditions for finalizing their bids.”
“I do not understand ‘conditions,’” said the Elder.
“I can help with that, Elder,” Justin said. “What did you have in mind, Jessica?”
I sketched out my idea.
Justin thought for a moment before saying, “I like it. Give me a minute with my client, okay?”
I turned to go, but he stopped me. “No need for that. Guess what? They have a high-tech ‘Cone of Silence!”
“A what?”
He just shook his head, smiling. Then he started speaking, head turned toward the Elder in the Captain’s chair, but I couldn’t hear any sound. They spoke back and forth several times. With every passing moment, I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier.
“Jessica?”
I blinked my eyes back open. “Yup. Here!”
Justin looked concerned. “The Elder is good with the idea. Do you want to draft it in the morning when you’re fresh?”
I shook my head. “Not if we want their bids by noon. Let’s get it done now.”
“Okaaaay . . . if you’re sure.” He sounded dubious.
The Elder Mission Leader began to speak again. Siri’s voice took up the translation. “Your idea pleases us. When you get the bids, we will need you to evaluate them.”
Worm elaborated. “Justin Abel our interests guards. You must your own kind protect. Capisce?”
It was what I had expected, but it was good to have it out in the open. “Capisco,” I replied.
“I do not this understand,” Worm replied.
“I understand,” I translated.
“Of course. You it said. But I did not you understand.”
I nodded, forgetting that the nonverbal communication probably didn’t help much. “I understand that you didn’t understand when I said I understood, but . . . .”
Worm cut me off. “But that is what you said not.”
Justin intervened. “Nevermind, Ensign. I’ll explain later. All that matters is that we both understand who we are representing.”
“Whom,” I muttered, futilely.
Justin and I left the “Bridge” and went back to the room the aliens had set aside for him.
“I’m an idiot,” I said. “Of course, Worm doesn’t speak Italian.”
Justin laughed. “But I bet he watched The Godfather!”
“Where, no doubt, there was lots of telling other people to understand things, and very little understanding, right?”
He thought a minute. “Sounds about right.”
I shook my head. “We sent all of that out into space. On purpose. Like advertising for humanity. It’s a wonder they decided to stop by.”
He sat at the desk and fired up a laptop. “Okay,” he said. “Give me a minute to set up an email account for the return messages, then we can get down to business.”
I smiled. “Is that a proposition?”
“More of a sly suggestion,” he responded, with a rakish grin.
I sat in the other chair and got my thoughts together, battling exhaustion to at least a draw. When he was ready, we kicked ideas back and forth, then language. After the better part of an hour, I had a series of group texts. I was confident, for once, that they would not generate any “reply all” responses, since the recipients were Yuri Raskolnikov, Luther Corbin, and Chen Yǔháng, the Chinese official who had contacted Justin.
“Gentlemen:
You have each submitted proposals for trade with The People on behalf of your governments. To ensure that the process is fair to all parties, the People ask that each government that wishes to have an offer considered take the following two steps, by the specified deadlines:
(1) Submit the offer in writing by no later than August 2, 2022 at 1700 hours UTC, to [email protected]. Specify, in your offer, the following:
(a) The amount and quality of the HEU you intend to offer and the coordinates for the location where The People will take delivery;
(b) As precisely as possible, what you are asking the People to provide in exchange.
(c) Any conditions attached to your bid.
(2) Move the amount of HEU specified in your bid to a location that is open to the air by no later than August 2, 2022 at 2330 hours UTC, and leave it there for twenty-four hours. The People will inspect the materials using remote sensors to ensure compliance with quality and quantity specifications in your bid.
IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NOTES:
First, understand that the People can transport twenty metric tons of HEU and prefer to depart fully loaded.
Second, I have been asked to evaluate the bids and make a recommendation to the People for their consideration. My recommendation will be based on the greatest good for the greatest number. Bidders may contact me at this number with any questions concerning the bidding process between 1300 and 1700 UTC. Bidders may, but need not, include narrative with their bid explaining any elements.
Finally, and most importantly: ANY attempt to affect the bidding by bribery, violence, threats of violence or any other improper or unconscionable means will result, not only in disqualification, but in forfeiture of your bid, without warning or compensation. Please note: This is NOT an invitation to get creative.
Jessica James
Emissary
I was so tired my fingers were fumbling the keystrokes. Justin took pity on me and handled the transcription to my phone and out, breaking up the message into eight texts. I saw him send the first . . . the second . . .
* * * * *
Diddle loo-do, diddle loo-do, diddle-loo-do!
The hated noise woke me from a deep sleep. I was lying on top of the bed – Justin’s bed! He was nowhere to be seen.
Diddle loo-do, diddle loo-do, diddle-loo-do!
What effing time was it? I appeared to be wearing yesterday’s clothes – sans shoes – but I didn’t even remember getting into bed!
Diddle loo-do, diddle loo-do, diddle-loo-do!
The phone, unfortunately, was on Justin’s desk. I stumbled out of bed and grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Professor,” Luther Corbin greeted me.
“If you say so,” I replied grumpily.
“Oh, I do. I do indeed!” He sounded disgustingly cheerful. “We received your text and will give you a timely response, I assure you. But I wanted to let you know that both Ms. Dunlop and Dr. Singh have been apprehended.”
That woke me up. “Really?”
“Ms. Dunlop took a flight from National to Denver and met up with Mr. Singh in the Denver airport. They had made arrangements to take separate flights out of the country from that hub, but we were there in time.” He sounded very pleased.
“And . . . Mr. Grant?” I asked, almost afraid to find out.
“No news on that score,” he replied. “And, I will be honest with you, Professor. I’d be surprised if we apprehend him. He is far, far more capable than Singh or Dunlop. So capable that we never suspected him. I never suspected him. But we have informed the Russian ambassador that Mr. Raskolnikov has been ‘pinged.’”
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.
He chuckled. “My fault, Professor. My fault entirely. That’s diplomat-speak for ‘persona non grata.’ We know he was a recipient of your text, so he can stay until the bidding is resolved. But he needs to be on a flight home by the end of the week.”
“Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Corbin. It’s a huge relief,” I said gratefully.
“To me as well,” he replied. “Nonetheless . . . I still recommend that you remain hidden, or with the aliens, until this is resolved. We have dealt with the known threats, but it’s the other sort that tend to get you.”
“Roger that,” I said with feeling.
“Well, you'll be hearing from me in a few hours. The President asked me to tell you that he thought your text message was inspired, and has every confidence in your integrity and judgment.”
I thanked him and rang off. I was finally able to look at the clock on my phone. 8:15 a.m. D-Day, H-Hour minus 3.75.
I needed a change of clothes, but once again – dammit all! – they were elsewhere. Either still at the safehouse, or else at the Hay-Adams. But not here. At least I had my purse, so I was able to fix my face and do something with my hair. My sandals were by the bed, so I slipped them on and went back to the hold in search of the bathroom.
As I stepped into the next chamber, I was startled to see Janet, Troi Harris and Daichi Kurokawa rise up, apparently from the floor, then settle gently on their feet. I wondered how the People managed that!
Janet spotted me right away. “Morning, Jessica. How’d ya sleep?” She was grinning, sure enough, but looked . . . off.
“Very much like a goddamned baby, if you follow me,” I growled.
She snorted and shook her head. “Damn, girl!”
“And as for it being a good morning,” I added, “I’ll note there’s no coffee!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, woman!” Troi walked over, and I saw she had a YETI mug with her. “I was going to make espresso. But Janet said you’d want more liquid.”
“All generations shall call you blessed,” I said fervently. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You might want to save a few of those blessings for Averil Livingston,” Janet said. “She had your things collected and dropped at the site where they picked all of you up yesterday morning. So all you have to do is give your friend Worm the word, and you should have a change of clothes.”
Relief!!! “Oh, thank God!”
“Yeah, well. Him, too, I guess,” Janet replied.
Dr. Kurokowa had been looking at me shyly. “Janet told us about what happened yesterday. She said you took no hurt, but . . . getting shot at is no joke, even when they miss. Are you all right?”
“I am,” I said. “I was just tired and grumpy, but the three of you have cured me of that.”
“Where’s Justin?” Janet asked.
“I assume he’s with the People,” I responded. “I haven’t seen him since we sent out our communique last night.”
Janet patted my arm. “Well, sleep’s a fine thing, too. I s’pose. I hear it keeps you healthy’n all. And if you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”
I growled at her, then turned to Troi and Daichi. “What’s on your agenda today? More discussions?”
“That’s the plan,” Daichi said. “Ensign Worm indicated that they were very interested in continuing our conversations while we still can. And of course, we’ll take whatever we can get.”
“There are a couple things you should know, too.” Troi was frowning slightly. “The whole crew has been awake from the time that they first came into our star system and confirmed that the source of the transmissions they had detected in deep space were still active. Probably ten weeks or so. The Elders will need to rest soon, which I think means they need to start sometime in the next three days. The sleep will last for weeks. That’s the reason for the compressed time table. The Mission Leader wants to wrap up everything and leave orbit before turning things over to Worm and his two contemporaries.”
That explained a lot, certainly. “That’s very helpful,” I said. “Anything else?”
Just then Worm came in and greeted us all. “Kurokawa-hakase, Troi Harris. The Elders ready are. Professor Seldon, welcome to join as well are you.”
Janet shook her head. “Thank you, Ensign. I’ll stay with Jessica. I’ve got something I need to discuss with her.”
“Of course,” Worm said.
“Ensign,” I said. “I hate to ask, but apparently Dr. Livingston was kind enough to pack some clothing for me and leave it on the hilltop where you picked us up yesterday morning. Would it be possible to retrieve it?”
He pondered for a moment. “We move the ship will need. Recovery fifteen minutes believe I.”
“Thank you, Ensign. Thank you very much. Is Mr. Abel with the Elder Mission leader?”
“Affirmative. Join you soon will.”
Worm, Daichi and Troi went off, leaving Janet and me by ourselves. “What’s up, Janet? You sounded pretty strange, there.”
“You mean, apart from bein’ on an alien space ship, and boppin’ a Russian spy, and havin’ you shot at all the time?”
“Yeah. Apart from all that. But give me a minute, would you? I need to take care of some business.” I stepped behind the curtain and sat on the ship’s version of a toilet. At least this time I was prepared for the rush of warm liquid and air that hit my extremely sensitive private parts when I was finished. Of course, tickling my nether regions reminded me of some business that had been left very much unfinished last night . . . .
Just as I was finishing up, Justin came into the hold and greeted Janet. “Good morning, Professor. How are you?”
“Well, no one’s tried to arrest me this week. ’Course, it’s only Tuesday,” she replied.
I pulled back the curtain. “Good morning,” I said, leaving off names. I wasn’t sure whether he was Mr. Abel or Justin this morning. I wasn’t so sure who I was either. I just knew that my name was spelled f-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-e-d!
He looked more awkward than I had seen him before, but he managed a “good morning” that was cheerful enough. “We’re short a chair in my room, but it’s probably still better than here,” he offered. “Shall we?”
So we went back into his room. Janet took a chair and, while Justin offered me the other, I declined. “I’m more flexible than either of you, these days.” I sat cross-legged on the bed, grateful that I’d had enough sense to wear pants. I looked at Janet. “Okay. Out with it!”
“Troi let me borrow her computer last night,” Janet replied. “I checked my email for the first time since I dumped my normal phone . . . . There was a message from the President.”
That made no sense. “Why would President Taryn send an email?”
She shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. “No. Ain’t you gotten all high ’n mighty! President Coleridge.”
At Justin’s inquisitive look, I said, “The guy who replaced Joy Grey as President of Gryphon. Appointed just after the end of the academic year.”
“Right,” Janet said. “Well . . . apparently he wasn’t appointed to find a way to solve all of our problems. The Board hired him to close us down.”
“What!” I was stunned. Sure, we’d been warned. But, the powers that be on the Board of Regents had been giving those sorts of warnings every few years for almost as far back as I could remember. I always figured it was just another way to soak a few extra dollars out of wealthy alumni.
“The College won’t even be reopening for the fall term.” Janet sounded as shaken as I was, and she’d had time to digest the news. “Last year’s enrollment drive fell too far short of goals. Again. And projections for the future look worse, ’cuz so many kids held off havin’ babies durin’ the Great Recession. So they’re refundin’ everyone’s money . . . and lettin’ all of the staff go. Everyone!”
Gryphon College had been our home for thirty years. Our colleagues, our community . . . wiped out in a heartbeat. Our students, left without a place to go, less than two weeks before classes were set to resume. Some of them just a couple credit-hours from their degree.
I found myself remembering graduation day, just ten weeks ago. The faculty leading the procession in full academic regalia. The splash of crimson from the Harvard alums and blue from the Yale mixed with the ranks of black robes, the hoods, the piping. Flags snapping in a stiff May breeze . . . Pomp and Circumstance . . . . President Grey, as always, feisty, principled, funny – “all Irish and half fey,” as she liked to say – giving her last commencement speech . . . .
All of those bright, young scholars that Dean Deveroux was always babbling about would probably find another place. Might take a while – it was a tough market – but they would survive if they were half as good as she thought they were. For now.
But people like me, like Janet, like Deveroux herself? No. There would be no other pastures for us. Teri “The Dream” Weaver, poet and philosopher . . . Walt Byron, the historian, who might know more about the age of Diocletian than anyone on earth . . . Janson Davies, the George and Clara Michaels Distinguished Professor of Art History, who made a point of attending every faculty meeting high as a jumbo jet . . . and on, and on, and on. Eminent scholars, mostly in their sixties and seventies. All their learning couldn’t protect them from demographic changes. Who would hire them now?
No one.
“I suppose everyone can go work at Sears,” I said bitterly.
“’fraid not,” Justin said. “They went belly-up years ago. Where’ve you been living?”
“Bastards,” I snarked.
“Sears sucked anyway,” Janet replied. “Nasty, nasty work.”
“Kodak, then,” I suggested.
Justin looked pained. “Uhhh . . . .”
Diddle loo-do, diddle loo-do, diddle-loo-do!
Screw them! I thought savagely. All of them! I needed a moment with my friend.
Diddle loo-do, diddle loo-do, diddle-loo-do!
Dammit I had made a commitment, and it was, I reminded myself, important. I found my phone and looked at it.
Janet looked at me and nodded.
“Mr. Chen.” I wanted to snap and snarl like a coyote deprived of a kill. To let this man know what I thought of his schemes and his confederates, his thugs and assassins. But I bit back on the bile that wanted to escape. I had set the terms of this call. I needed, one way or another, to honor them.
“Emissary Jessica James. I am speaking on behalf of my country. Of my people. We are preparing a response to your message from last night. You said you would base your recommendations on the ‘greatest good for the greatest number.’ What do you mean by that?”
“Mr. Chen, I am sure you are familiar with the utilitarian principle, and I doubt you called to discuss philosophy.” And tough shit if I’m wrong about that, because I’m not gonna do it anyway!
“But your response hints at the crux of our dilemma,” Chen replied smoothly. “You are a follower of a different philosophical tradition. A western tradition. Why should that tradition have pride of place here? By what right do you sit in judgment over a country that has both the largest number of people, and the oldest civilization, on earth?”
I thought about that. It didn’t take long. “Pure blind luck, Mr. Chen. The aliens ran into me, and for whatever reason they’ve decided to trust me. I can’t claim to be a Confucian scholar, but I expect I’m capable of evaluating a simple trading proposal.”
“Yes, in your arrogance, you ‘expect’ that. But you have no idea of what is important in the civilization and culture of my country!” My, my. Chen was getting testy.
But I wasn’t in a terribly good mood myself. “Prolly not. You’ll need to do the best you can, Mr. Chen. The instructions did specifically permit you to add narrative explaining any elements of your bid that you think will warrant it. I’ll be sure to pass it along if I can’t follow it. Or even if I can.”
“You couldn’t understand us unless you learned our language, studied our culture and history, read our scholars!”
“Really?” My resolve to be good was wavering. “Gee, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m a bit pressed for time today. Tomorrow’s not looking much better.”
“You make jokes?” His voice radiated incredulity.
“The aliens have a hard deadline, Mr. Chen,” I said. “We’re all going to have to do the best we can in the limited time we have available.”
My comment did nothing to calm his anger. “Unacceptable! The matter should be referred to the U.N. Security Council! And this notion that we have to put our HEU out in the open, where the alien devils can simply take it! Absurd!!”
“Stop whining.” I was done coddling him and my voice was cold. “Yesterday you tried to have me killed. You considered that ‘acceptable.’ Before that your spy tried to have me arrested for espionage. You didn’t think that was ‘absurd.’ Well guess what? The aliens use a different rule book, and they’re in a position to enforce it. Sometimes you have to roll the hard six . . . without loading the dice.”
“You see! So much for your pretense of being even handed!”
I laughed at him. “It’s not fair unless you get to cheat? Please. I’ve told you the rules and the standard. I will follow them, scrupulously. The aliens, as well, are honorable. But you don’t have to believe any of that. If you don’t like the game, don’t play.”
He hung up on me. Boring conversation anyway.
Justin was giving me a sardonic look. “Having a little fun there?”
I shook my head. “Not really. All of them, though – the Chinese, the Russians, the Americans most of all – aren’t used to hearing ‘take it or leave it” from someone who can make it stick. I’m really hoping that all of us learn from the experience. We need to wake up and get our shit together.”
He smiled. “That sounds like a rationalization. You enjoyed telling him to fuck off.”
“Hey, don’t knock rationalizations,” Janet said. “I need two or three juicy ones to make it through an average day. Most people do.”
“I’m with you,” he responded. “Lawyers need closer to a baker’s dozen, and that’s on a good day. As in, ‘a day they are trying to be good.’ Happens almost every February 29th.”
“Okay, I did enjoy it. A bit. But he reminded me of a Gryphon Don, Justin.” I looked at Janet, and unexpectedly felt tears blur my vision. “Of all of us, really. So full of our own importance. Heaping titles and honors on ourselves. Distinguished professor of this, or eminent scholar of that. Vivat academia! Vivant professores! Semper sint in flore! Rulers of our own little kingdom, oblivious to how dependent we all were on the indulgence of the whole damned world. And how little it would take, to bring it all down.”
Janet nodded. “I see what you’re sayin’. However important we all think we are, the People could make our civilization disappear tomorrow just by droppin’ rocks on us from space, and there’s nothin’ we could do to stop them.”
“You know they aren’t like that,” Justin argued.
“Of course not,” I said. “But don’t you see? We’re just relying on the kindness of strangers. This time, we lucked out. The People aren’t like that. Next time we might not be so lucky.”
Janet, bless her, had brought tissues. “Better get your voice back under control,” she warned. “I somehow doubt the Russians’ll be any happier than the Chinese.”
Nor was she wrong. I did, indeed, get a call from Yuri Raskolnikov, who – unsurprisingly – spoke perfectly unaccented English when he wanted to. He blithely pretended that he hadn’t offered to bribe me or injure Janet half a day earlier, and instead treated me to a lecture on the importance of Russia to world civilization, how it was a bulwark against godlessness, beset on all sides by the predations of the decadent and feckless West. I even heard the part about the Third Rome.
I’m SUCH a lucky girl.
By the end, my monosyllabic responses finally convinced him that he was no Willie Lohman. He ended the call.
At some point while I was enduring Raskolnikov’s Russian Rhapsodies, Janet went back into the hold and got the package that Averil had put together for me. Justin took off for a bit, promising to find a way to get us all some food.
I got changed.
D-Day, H-Hour minus one.
Janet and I talked about the end of Gryphon, after a hundred twenty-three years. But whatever might be said about the hole that abrupt ending had torn from our lives, it made our immediate futures simpler.
“Poor Officer Wolf – Now how will he know whether James Wainwright disappeared?” Janet said.
I nodded. “Which will complicate his efforts to claim you killed me. I think.”
“Hopefully he won’t go all Inspector Javert on me.”
I smiled. “How did you get pigeon-holed in early American Literature? It’s like you’ve read every book, seen every movie, heard every song.”
“They had to put me somewhere.” She shrugged. “No such thing as a Professor Without Portfolio!”
“Well . . . There was Dr. Grey,” I replied. And it was true. A polymath with the heart of a lion and the soul of a poet, she’d held our crazy, brilliant, bickering faculty, our rambunctious students, and our dyspeptic alumni together for two decades. Over the occasional grumblings of various regents and deans, she had also taught classes on an eclectic and unpredictable range of subjects whenever the whimsy had taken her.
“Nobody puts baby in a corner,” Janet said fondly, recalling a quote Grey had occasionally used to squelch her detractors.
“The Irish Rover,” I agreed. It was a nickname some long– (and easily) forgotten dean had intended to be derogatory, but which she’d made a badge of honor. “They should’ve asked you to fill her shoes.”
Janet laughed. “As if! Teachin’ kept me young. Dialin’ for dollars woulda sucked the life outta me.”
“Come on!” I teased. “You couldn’t sell wealthy donors on the glories of supporting institutions of learning?”
She shook her head. “It was a damned good gig, Jessica – for me, anyway. Comfortable. But we’ve done more in the past two months than we did in the last thirty years. Maybe we should have been out here all along.”
“Well . . . I won’t miss curriculum committee meetings, that’s for sure,” I said, looking for the silver lining. “Or Dean Deveroux.”
“Parents’ weekend!” Janet shivered in horror.
“Quants,” I contributed.
“In linguistics? Seriously?
I nodded. “Those killjoys are everywhere. Like termites.”
“There’s a place for ’em. I guess.” Janet sounded dubious.
“Then they should find it . . . and stay there!”
Janet chuckled. “It was an illusion, wasn’t it? Had its moments, though.”
“It surely did.” I smiled, remembering.
The first offer came at seven minutes before the deadline, from the Chinese. Russia’s offer came two minutes later. At 11:59:25 I got the email from Corbin.
“What’ve we got?” Janet asked.
“China increased their offer to six metric tons and decreased their demand to twenty-five youthening shots. It looks like there’s a lengthy explanation of how this will permit the continuity of leadership that is essential to ensure China’s stability through its period of development. As well as a shorter explanation for why China’s stability is critical to the world as a whole.”
“If China ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy?” Janet sounded skeptical. “I’m guessing the Russians stood pat?”
I shook my head. “Interestingly, they dropped the demand for the one youthening shot. But it’s otherwise the same: Twenty tons of weapons-grade uranium for either the stealth tech or the tractor-beam tech. Oh . . . and a dissertation on Russia’s valiant struggle against secularism and the decadent West. I think they might have left out the part about . . . wait. Nope. They didn’t. Yeah. Russia as the Third Rome.”
Janet guffawed. “Read the room, bitches!” She saw me hesitating. “What are you waitin’ for? What’d Corbin say?”
“I’m almost afraid to find out.”
“Come on, even their original offer was better than what China and Russia put on the table!”
“I know,” I said. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Is that really the best humanity can do?” Only one way to find out. Quit stalling! I opened the email and scanned it. My shoulders sagged.
“Well?!!!” Janet was practically hopping out of her seat.
“They’ve done it, Janet. They’ve done it! Twenty metric tons for the battery tech. They get the intellectual property rights, but subject to the condition that the formula and process must be shared, free of any charge, fee, or royalty, with all people. And, every human is expressly recognized as a third-party beneficiary of the agreement. The only hold-back is that they want to announce all of it at the Conference of the Parties of the Rio Climate Convention in November.”
Janet looked stunned. “I’ll be dipped in shit and slow-roasted. You did it, Jessica.”
”We did it.”
She shook her head. “No. This was all you. Your idea. Your crusade. I was just along for the ride – Water Rat to your Mr. Toad. I’ve never had so much fun.”
“Wait – I remember that story,” I said. “Wasn’t Water Rat the sensible one?”
“I’m plenty sensible!” she replied stoutly.
“No, you’re bat scat crazy, as your star-turn in The Spy Who Shagged Me demonstrated.” I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotions. Relief . . . joy . . . wonder . . . lingering sadness . . . and under all of it, through all of it, deep affection for this incredible person who had found me, stupidly trembling at the idea of becoming a woman, and had pushed me out of myself, then insisted on sharing every step of the journey. I crushed her in a hug as tears flooded down my face. “But you’re also pretty amazing. For a water rat.”
“”You say the sweetest things.”
Enter Justin, with food. He looked at us both and shook his head. “Either the news is really, really good, or very, very bad!”
“It’s good. It’s good!” I said, pulling myself together. “And I’ll even tell you about it – if you feed me first!”
He laughed, and handed each of us a sandwich, with a small flourish. “A little pulled pork. Now . . . tell me!”
Around mouthfuls of food (damn, that place was good!), I summarized the three proposals. When I was done, I said, “I’ll encourage the People to read all three proposals themselves, including the narratives. But my own recommendation isn’t hard.”
Justin smiled. “Yeah, no suspense on this one. Not when the alternatives are the ‘Third Rome’ and ‘Long, Long, Long Live the Son of Heaven!’”
“I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs,” Janet said. “Why’d they even bother?”
“I kind of wonder why neither of them tried for the battery tech,” I said. “They knew – courtesy of my conversation with Singh and Livingston, which Grant was around to hear – that I thought it was a big deal for humanity. It met the criteria in a way that their proposals didn’t.”
“Not much downside,” Justin said. “They knew the Americans were bidding for the battery tech, and based on the initial proposal they knew the U.S. government would try to license it if they were successful. Neither country hesitates to violate our IP rights when it suits them. So why not take a shot at getting what they really wanted instead? No sense giving up their HEU for something that they could steal if we won the bidding.”
I thought about that. “Damn, that’s devious. You’re good at this!”
“‘J.D.’ stands for ‘just devious,’ actually.” He grinned. “Normally we don’t advertise that.”
“Whyever not?” I asked.
“I think Taryn’s pretty smart to give it away,” Janet said. “Between the downsides of trying to enforce a patent and the public relations coup it’ll be when he gets to announce the whole thing at that international conference”
I shrugged. “It’s a benefit, certainly. But not the sort I’d make a fuss about. Do the right thing, and you ought to get some kudos.”
“Be a nice change,” Janet agreed. “Normally, it just gets you crucified. Or flooded with solicitations from worthy charities.”
“Or disbarred, of course,” Justin added.
“That goes without sayin’.” Janet’s smile was tigershark wide.
I forwarded the emails to Justin, who took them to his client for review.
* * * * *
An hour later, Justin, Janet and I met with Elder Mission Leader and Ensign Worm. As usual, the leader used Siri to translate, while Worm continued his efforts to either master the English language or strangle it.
“Jessica James . . . I have reviewed the proposals. Even after running them through our translation protocols several times and discussing them with Worm and Attorney Justin Abel, there is much I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, welcome to earth,” Janet said. “But it’s not your fault, Elder.”
I interjected, “Although I might phrase the matter more diplomatically, I agree with my colleague.”
“What is ‘Confucius?’” the Elder asked.
“In this context, ‘confu-zing,’” Janet responded.
I shook my head. “Again, Janet’s essentially right. Confucius was a profoundly influential Chinese philosopher. But you don’t need to understand him to evaluate the Chinese proposal. Their proposal would directly benefit a handful of people who rule – who govern – a country where over a billion people live, by extending the rulers’ lifespans, like you’ve extended mine. The remainder of their submission consists of arguments about possible indirect benefits of doing so, some of which are loosely based on Confucian ideas. There is no way to verify these claims, and the arguments are inherently self-serving.”
“Anyone who tells you differently is selling somethin’,” Janet added.
“Psst, Janet,” I stage whispered. “They’re all selling something.”
“Yeah, good point,” she laughed.
“Ah,” said Worm. “They are ‘diabolical masterminds.’”
“Uh . . . I don’t know about that,” I said cautiously.
We waited while the translation caught up. The Elder chittered for a bit, then Siri’s voice kicked in. “This, I understand. But the Chinese did not know what they asked for.”
Justin elaborated. “The shot you got, Jessica, was apparently manufactured on the spot after the People did a detailed scan of your body down to the cellular level. A generic shot probably wouldn’t work at all. Or might produce results that were essentially random. The Chinese would probably be pretty put out if President Xi had to be decanted in amniotic fluid because he had regressed to a zygote.”
“Or else they’d throw a party,” Janet said. “Lord knows, everyone else would.”
“They could offer to allow a scan,” I said, trying Justin’s practice of advocating for Satan.
“This would be possible,” the Elder said. “Do you recommend it?”
Before I could answer, Justin shook his head. “Remember when we first discussed the Prime Directive, Elder? I said there were individuals whose extended life might well change the course of human development. The Chinese offer is premised on the idea that extending the lifespans of their current leadership would change our history. They claim the change would be for the better, which I would personally dispute. But I agree it would change it.”
“Our rule must be followed,” Worm said solemnly.
“I would also not recommend their proposal as a policy matter,” I added. “Every leader of humans is tempted to believe they are indispensable. But, as one leader wisely said, the graveyards are filled with indispensable men.”
“This ‘graveyard’ – I understand do not even,” Worm said.
I went into lecturer mode. “It is a custom among some of our people to bury the remains of dead humans in the ground. Areas set aside for this purpose are called ‘graveyards.’”
Worm looked at Elder, who gazed back, seemingly impassively. Finally, Worm said, “Ewwwww!”
Elder chittered and Worm subsided. “Moving right along,” Siri translated. “Please discuss the proposal from the Russian Federation.”
“The Russian proposal is more straightforward,” I said. “The Russian Federation offered more uranium than China because they have more, left over from a period when Russia was larger and more powerful. The President of Russia is currently fighting a war to make his country more powerful again, and seeks to obtain technologies that will aid his war efforts. The direct benefits of the trade would flow to the Russian state. Indirect effects would be substantial, and would adversely affect countries that would prefer not to be dominated by Russia.”
“Including your own?” Elder asked, rather pointedly.
“Correct, Elder,” I said without hesitation. “Very much including my own.”
“I understand do not about ‘Third Rome,’” Worm said plaintively.
“You don’t need to,” I promised. “Truly. Trust me on this one.”
Janet added, “It makes about as much sense as ‘Toga! Toga! Toga!’”
“The Russian proposal is technically feasible,” the Elder said, steering the discussion in a more practical direction. “Not our stealth technologies; they are far beyond your current technological reach. But the tractor beam is not complicated.”
“Also useless is to any current earth civilization,” Worm said. “It requires power too much.”
“You mean, you could accept their offer, give ’em exactly what they ask for, and it would be useless?” Janet asked.
“That’s exactly what he means,” Justin said.
I looked at Elder. At Worm. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. I thought I knew them, but . . . . “I do not recommend that course.”
“Explain,” the Elder invited.
“’Cuz it’s a dirty trick,” Janet explained with her usual pith.
I nodded. “Exactly. You’ve asked me to protect the interests of my species. It would be a terrible thing for you to provide nothing of any practical value. Especially when you had a good offer that you turned down.”
“Wouldn’t be so good for your species either,” Janet observed. “We certainly wouldn’t welcome your kind back.”
“We may never pass this way again,” Worm observed, his syntax and intonation suggesting a quote.
“Nonetheless, Ensign Worm,” I said. “Nonetheless. When I was here with Doctor Livingston, you wondered whether our species had honor. Does yours?”
The Elder chittered. “Enough. I was interested to see whether your reasoning matched ours on this. I am satisfied. Moreover . . . even if the Russia Federation could use the technology, we would not intervene in an an intraspecies dispute. It is not our way.”
I nodded. “So you see why I recommend the American proposal. It’s not because I’m an American myself, though I am and I’ve never been prouder to be one. I begged the U.S. government to make a proposal like this. One that would, unequivocally, benefit all of our species, right now. Accept it, and this first meeting between our species will . . . .”
“ . . . live in ‘famy,’” Janet finished. “‘’Cuz that’s gotta be the exact opposite of infamy. English bein’ logical and all.”
“I do not this understand,” Worm said.
“Nevermind,” I laughed. “Low humor. Again. We would remember your species well, and with honor.”
The Elder and Worm chittered at each other for a moment, and Siri did not translate their words. Finally, though, the leader returned his attention to me. “On behalf of this Mission, I accept the American proposal.”
I felt tears welling up again. We did it! We really did.
Justin said, “There are some details that will need to be worked out. If this agreement is going to be kept under wraps for a couple months, I’ll want it all in writing with multiple originals that can be securely stored in undisclosed locations.”
I nodded. “Makes sense to me. I’ll contact Corbin and let him know. But it might be good if you talked to their lawyers directly on the legal stuff. I’d just be in the way. With your permission, Elder?”
“Make it so,” he replied.
I pulled out my phone and called Corbin.
“How are your feet this fine day, Professor?” he answered.
“What?” Then I remembered our earlier conversation. “Oh! Right! . . . They’re beautiful, Mr. Corbin. Just beautiful!”
There was a pause on the line, followed by a deep rumbling noise in basso profondo. Corbin was laughing. “Well done, indeed, Professor.”
I said, “The leader of the mission accepted your proposal verbally just a moment ago. Their lawyer would like to have a formal agreement drawn up, though. Just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
“Understood,” he replied. “And agreed. We’ve actually got Ms. Shakon working on a draft right now. She is . . . very good.”
We agreed that Shakon would work directly within Justin to finalize the text, and ended the call cordially. Corbin sounded almost jovial.
I relayed my conversation to the people – and The People – in the cabin, ending with: “They’re on board, and Mr. Corbin sounds delighted. He put Shakon on drafting the agreement.
“What’s Shakon?” asked Worm.
”Standing at the Crossroads!” Janet exclaimed.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“Huh?” Justin was equally stumped.
“I do not . . . “ Worm began.
I stopped him. “A misunderstanding. Toni Shakon is a “who,” not a “what.” She is one of President Taryn’s lawyers.”
“He more than one has?” Worm asked, inquisitive as always.
“More than a brigade, I think,” Justin answered.
“But she’s very good,” I said, hoping to return to the issue at hand. “I think it’ll move fast.”
Justin smiled and shook his head. “There’s ‘fast,’ and there’s ‘lawyer fast.’ They aren’t too closely related to each other.”
“Lollygaggers!” Janet shook her head ruefully.
“We do not much time have,” Worm warned.
“It’ll be done in time. I can promise you that much,” Justin replied.
The Elder was looking at me and chittering. Eventually Siri kicked in. “Jessica James . . . we are almost finished, and, it appears, almost successful. Assuming that the agreement is finalized and the exchange timely effectuated, have you given thought to your payment?”
“A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, just like the Ponderosa,” Worm added, remembering our earlier words.
“Wait – hired hands got killed on that show,” Janet said.
I seemed to recall having the same thought.
“I observed that did,” Worm said. “Strange it was. We would not that practice follow.”
“I’m so glad,” I said dryly. Then I smiled. “From the day I really accepted what had happened to me, and decided to try to take on this mission, there’s only been one thing I wanted. Just one more shot.” I looked at Janet. “For the best friend anyone ever had.”
Janet was – for once – speechless.
But the Elder was not. “No, Jessica James.”
I spun to face him, angry words forming on my lips. No? After everything we’ve done? Everything we’ve been through? NO?
But Siri continued to translate the Elder’s words. “There is no need. Professor Janet Seldon has done ample service herself. If she desires a shot such as we gave you, she may have one.”
Janet finally squeaked out, “What???”!!!”
Caught completely by surprise, I laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more as tears of joy streamed down my damned-near perfect face. “Which what?” I asked her. “Do you intend that as an adverb, an adjective, a pronoun? An interjection, perhaps?”
She growled at me, “Have I ever mentioned that you use your tongue purtier than a $20 whore?”
It didn’t matter. I just laughed harder. “Yeah. I think you have mentioned that before. Once or twice.”
Elder chittered again. “Do you have any other thought for how we might repay you, Jessica James? We acknowledge that, should this deal be successful, our debt to you is great.”
That was enough to still my laughter, though the smile on my face lingered. I hadn’t ever thought beyond asking for a shot for Janet. But . . . .
Just like that, I had the answer.
To be continued. Conclusively.
Maximum Warp
Chapter 20: Endgame
“I’ll get you an answer on that, Elder Mission Leader,” I said. “But there’s someone I need to talk to first.” I was pretty sure I knew what reward I should request.
“Of course,” he responded through the Siri-based interface. “There is time for you to decide. Ample – but not unlimited.”
“I understand,” I replied.
Janet, Justin and I made our way back toward the cabin Justin had been using as a bedroom. But before we reached it, Justin got a call from Toni Shakon from the White House counsel’s office.
“You two use the room,” he urged us. “I’ll take it in the foyer.”
“Thanks, Justin,” I said. “But you’re going to need your computer – and privacy. You go ahead. Janet and I can talk out here.”
He saw the sense in that and left us.
Janet – Janet Seldon! – was actually teary-eyed. “Jessica . . . I can’t believe you would do that. I mean, yeah. I s’pose I can believe it of you. You’re a really great person an’ all. For a linguist, anyway. But . . . of all things you could have asked for?”
I wrapped her in a big hug. “Worth it just to see your face,” I murmured. “Told you I’d get you back for sending me up here all by myself!”
“Oughta piss you off more often,” she sniffed.
“Is that even possible?” I smiled.
She broke my embrace and held me loosely. “That’s gotta be the nicest thing anyone’s done, ever. Let alone, for me. But . . . you get a freebie now. What are you thinking? Some scheme to save Gryphon?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have the first idea how to do that. I’m sure there’s something I could ask for that would be worth some money. I guess. But I know next to nothing about money. And money’s not Gryphon’s real problem anyway.”
She looked at me closely, then sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’d like to just blame greed and tight-fisted moneymen. But the real problem is us – all of us. Not enough people want what we’re offering.”
I nodded. “And it’ll only get worse as the total applicant pool for all colleges shrinks.”
She chewed on her lip, thinking. “If the college had money, it could lower tuition. Might bring numbers up.”
A waggled my fingers. “Tough to say. But . . . This is going to sound weird. I feel like I’ve got a different kind of debt to pay. A personal one.”
She raised an eyebrow in question. “So . . . who was it that you needed to talk to, before you made your decision?”
“Troi Harris.”
* * * * *
An hour later, Justin had left to go to the EEOB to meet directly with Toni Shakon, figuring that it would speed the process of finalizing the text of the agreement. I was using his cabin.
“I’m sorry. What?” Troi sounded like she’d been hit over the head with a long two by four.
“The People promised to reward me if I managed to get this deal done. It’s not why I did it . . . and really, there’s no reward they could ever give me, personally, that would matter more than becoming Jessica James. I’ve been paid. But the offer is still there, and . . . well. Troi, I know how much you’ve dreamed of this. I want you to have it. All of it.”
She sat down on the bed, like someone had cut her strings. “Oh. My. God . . . Jessica, you have no idea . . . .” She started to cry. Softly at first, then in great, gasping sobs.
I was dumbfounded. There was a young(ish) woman sitting on the bed, her emotions tearing her apart. Whatever did one do about that? Offer her tea? But a voice in my head said, Oh, go back to sleep, James. You’re hopeless! I’ve got this.
My voice.
I sat beside Troi and gathered her in my arms, holding her tight to quell her shaking. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
Through her sobs, she said, “All those years . . . Oh, God! I almost ended it, so many times, the pain was so great. I lost friends . . . family . . . I thought I was a freak. I hated my body . . . my life. Everything. Totally ratchet. I finally found a way to keep going. To shove open doors and walk through them. Build a life that had meaning. And now that I’ve finally – finally! – got my shit together . . . You offer me the chance to start over, all normie . . . Hearth and home, husband and child . . . maybe a white picket fence and a couple dogs? For free, like some fairy tale? Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo?”
“For free?” I hugged her harder. “Oh, no, honey. I got it for free. You earned it, a thousand times over.”
She closed her eyes and buried her head against my shoulder.
I closed my eyes as well and just held her, extending my other senses to feel the calming of her body. Her shaking gradually stilled; her breathing became more even. The flow of hot, salty tears slowed, paused, and then stopped.
She took a deep, deep, calming breath and released it slowly. “I don’t even have the words to thank you. I can’t believe you’d do that, for someone you barely know.” Her voice was raw, but calm.
I opened my eyes, gave her shoulders a final squeeze and released her. “It was pure dumb-ass luck I met Worm that night on the trail. It could have been anyone. It should have been you.”
She looked bewildered. “Why me?”
“Look at the things you accomplished! And at little more than half my age. An adventurer, explorer, a writer of original works . . . and all that while dealing with severe gender dysphoria. You’re a marvel, Troi. Who better to represent our species?”
Her eyes were still bright. “And to think I wanted to hate you! You offer me the thing I’ve wanted most my whole life. . . . God, it’s so tempting! But . . . it’d be wasted, Jessica.”
What was she saying? “Wasted? Why?”
“The People already offered me a shot – as an inducement to accompanying them when they leave.”
I was dumbfounded. Part of me was hurt that I hadn’t been offered a berth as well. But . . . would I really have taken it if they had? It’s not about you, Jessica! “But now you don’t have to go, Troi. You can have what you always wanted, right here. The whole package.”
“No.” She shook her head, a gesture that seemed both sorrowful and final. “I can’t unsee what I’ve seen, and I wouldn’t want to. How would it feel, walking around the city all quiche . . . you know, serious sizzle? Watching men come at me, thirsty as fuck . . . when I know in my heart they’d probably dis the person I’ve always been, as well as all of my trans friends? This world’s always been an alien place to me. It always will be.”
“You’re talking about sailing away with real aliens. As in, alien aliens. You don’t even know what they look like! How’s that going to be better?” I asked.
“I don’t care what the People look like. They accept me the way I am – the Mission Leader thinks I’m ‘whole.’ Go figure! The shot’s for my benefit, not theirs. They’ve decided they want to learn more about us and I want to learn all about them. That’s a life worth living, don’t you think?”
I thought about that. As an academic, I could understand and respect it. But . . . “I held you while you wept, just now. Are you sure?”
She gave me a sweet smile. “Told you before. Old memories, old pain. They rise up and get me, sometimes. Probably always will. It’s part of me.”
“Then why not . . . .” I began.
Anticipating the question, she stopped me. “Because it’s not the best part of me,” she said gently.
She touched my check and then, to my surprise, kissed me lightly on the lips. “Thank you, Jessica James Marshall Wainwright. I’m sure you were a good man; I know you’re a fantastic woman. Whatever you might think, no one could have done a better job. No one! So take your reward and stop feeling guilty about it. Whatever debt you thought you owed me – believe me, you’ve paid it. I will never forget it. Or you.”
She got up and walked to the door. At the threshold, she turned to say something more, then thought better of it. She shook her head, smiled, and was gone.
Janet came in moments later. “That girl had a most peculiar expression on her face when she left just now. How’d she take it?”
“She turned me down, Janet. Decided she was too scarred to have a ‘normal life.’”
“Seriously?” Janet looked stricken. “Damn. The poor woman! I thought she’d kill for that shot. . . . It breaks my heart. Really, it does.” She slumped in a chair.
I shook my head. “She’s going to get the shot, but not because I offered it. The aliens are going to give her one, because she’s decided to go with them.”
Janet’s face drained of color, then turned a vivid red. “She’s gonna do what!!!
This wasn’t the reaction I expected at all. “I know. Sure shocked me . . . and I guess, made me sad, too. But I thought you’d understand her better – after all, she’s signing up for one hell of an adventure!”
“Screw that!” Janet said. “She hasn’t finished Orion’s Shadow! Her fans have been waitin’ – I’ve been waitin’ – a year and a half for the last book! We’ve followed her characters – wept over them! And we don't get to find out if they make it home safe? Are you kidding me! She can’t do this to us!”
Who was this woman? “Janet . . . .”
But she was out of her seat in a second and out the door in two, a most determined look on her face. Hell hath no fury like a reader scorned!
But while I’d known Janet for thirty years and had only known Troi for days, I doubted even the formidable Seldon temper would prevail in this case. That young woman would not be budged.
It seemed like I couldn’t give away youth and good looks today. I needed a different answer, and I was feeling stumped. I got up and started to pace. Seven steps, wall to wall. Back and forth . . . back and forth. What could I ask for, that wouldn’t violate the Prime Directive, and might do some good?
Back and forth . . . back and forth. A lifetime on this ship would get pretty old.
Back and forth . . . .
“Jessica James.” Worm was at the door.
“Yes, Ensign?”
“Elder Mission Leader speak with you wishes.”
I had a sudden spike of worry. “Is everything alright? Did something happen . . . ?”
“All is groovy,” he replied. “Has cargo to do with.”
Whipsawed between his Sixties quotes and his attempts to freelance, it took me a minute. “Uhh . . . I don’t know what I can do to help with that, but I’ll certainly talk to him about it.”
We trooped to another small chamber, where the leader of the mission was waiting. “What can I do for you, Elder?” I asked.
He began chittering, and Siri translated. “I understand you offered to give your payment to Troi Harris, in the form of a shot.”
Siri didn’t make it sound like a question, but I thought it polite to respond. “I did, sir. She declined.”
“You do not ask for something for yourself?”
I shrugged. “I’ve always led a simple life. You’ve given me back forty years. I don’t know how I’m going to spend it yet.”
“When we spoke earlier, you told me that we could not make “bucks,” correct?” he asked, through Siri.
From habit, I nodded. “Yes, sir. It would break lots of rules. That’s why I tried to think of a technology you could trade for the uranium.”
“I understand. But . . . there is no time to come up with another technology that would work as payment for you – something that would be valuable but still within our rules. We have to break orbit in two days.”
Damn! “I . . . was afraid that might be the case.”
“We have a proposition for you to consider. It may solve a problem for us as well.” Even Siri’s translation sounded somewhat tentative.
“I’m happy to help, Elder,” I assured him.
“Before we found your star system, we had been collecting other materials that had some limited value in our home system. The weapons-grade uranium is substantially more valuable to the People, so we decided to clear our cargo holds of these other materials. It was our intent to simply dump the existing cargo in orbit around your system’s star. But Worm thinks it might have value to humans as well. He suggested it might be used as at least partial payment for your service.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well . . . I don’t know much about minerals and such, but I can certainly look into it. What are you carrying?”
Worm responded. “English language terms I think are rhodium, iridium and palladium.”
I thought for a moment. “Ummm, okay. Again, not my field, but I’m sure there are uses for them. How much are you carrying?”
Worm’s face had a perpetually owlish expression. “Sixteen tons.”
“Goodness! That sounds like a lot! I . . . ahh. I think I’ll need to talk with the government people to see where we could take delivery of that much material. Can’t just leave it in Janet’s backyard.” Just great. Now I’ve got responsibility for getting rid of a bunch of rocks.
The Elder said, “That would be appreciated. It took us some time to collect.”
I went back to Justin’s cabin. Who should I call? Corbin? No. He’s the President’s Chief of Staff. He’s got better things to worry about than my problems. Maybe Dr. Livingston?
Janet was back in the cabin . . . and she looked like the cat that found the clotted cream. “I was wonderin’ where you wandered off to.”
I said, “The Elder wanted to find out if I’d take some space rocks in payment. Stuff they’d been collecting to take back home, before finding out we had alien catnip.”
“Huh,” she said. “I guess it’s worth checking out.”
“Prolly,” I said. “I said I’d look into it, anyway. Why are you looking so pleased? You left spitting bullets.”
She positively bounced out of her chair. “She’s already got the last book of Orion’s Shadow written! It’s at the publisher for the final round of edits! And here’s the best part: She was gonna ask Dave Grillo if he’d make the final decisions on the editor’s suggestions. But she said she’d also ask him to let me help!”
“Congratulations . . . I guess? I mean, that’s good, right?” I wasn’t quite seeing why this was a cause for such excitement, but it clearly was.
“Are you kidding me! I’m gonna get to find out what happens months before the rest of the world! And I get to work with Dave freakin’ Grillo!!! You have no idea!
I smiled. “Well, I’m really happy for you. And I’m glad that you aren’t planning to kill Troi. I kind of like her.”
“Oh, up your nose with a rubber hose,” she said, affectionately. “Anyhow . . . what are you gonna do to check out the Elder’s offer?”
“I was trying to decide who I should contact about it. I mean, I don’t want to bother Luther Corbin or Averil Livingston with personal questions, but I’m not sure what to do with a pile of rocks.”
Janet’s eyes twinkled. “I’m not great at advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?”
I snorted. “Why should today be different from any other day?”
“Take ’em to a jeweler?” she suggested.
“I don’t think that’s going to work – they’ve got a lot of the stuff.”
“A ‘lot’.” She looked at me. “Is that a technical term?”
I laughed. “Smartass. Worm said they’ve got sixteen tons.”
“Yeah, that’s a lot, alright. . . . I know! Why don’t you talk to Aguia? He’s not involved in the contract stuff and I think he’s kinda sorta hemi-demi-semi- retired. Freelancin’, like. Maybe he’d give you some advice.”
That seemed like a good idea. I’d gotten his number when we’d met at the EEOB, so I tried it.
“Stanley Aguia,” he answered.
“Good afternoon, General. Or evening, I guess. It’s Jessica James and Janet Seldon. Do you have a minute for a sort-of unofficial question?”
“I think I can make time,” he said with a chuckle. “Between games of Jetpack Joyride 2.”
“The People are getting rid of their current cargo – space rocks, I guess – so they can max out on our uranium. They asked if I could take some or all of it as partial payment for my work. It’s a lot of material, though – sixteen tons – and I’m not sure what I’d do with it or where I’d store it. I don’t know whether the government might have interest in it, or if not, maybe industry. Or, hell, a museum. I’m embarrassed to say I’m a bit out of my depth.”
“Any idea what kind of materials?” he asked. “There’s some valuable stuff floating around in space – as well as plenty of junk.”
“Yeah – Worm said it was . . . palladium, I think, and, ah . . . iridium. And . . . ” I paused. It was on the tip of my tongue! What was it!
Finally, I had to give up. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember the third thing. . . . Oops!”
Worm’s voice came from the speakers. “Jessica James. The third mineral is rhodium.”
I almost jumped out of my skin. “Great good heavens! Worm, I’m sorry. I forgot you were listening! Thank you for the information. Perhaps you could turn off the microphone for a while?”
“I will this do,” he replied.
“Did you catch that, General?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence on the phone before Aguia answered. “Let me be sure I’ve got this right. The People have offered you sixteen tons of rhodium, iridium and palladium as partial payment for your efforts?” He was speaking carefully and precisely.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think they might have felt bad that there wasn’t any time to really explore other technology options.”
“They might have felt bad?” He started to chuckle.
I was embarrassed. Probably shouldn’t have taken up his time. “I’m sorry, General. What am I missing?”
Janet, bless her, looked equally confused.
Aguia replied, “If I hadn’t observed what both of you are capable of these past few days, I’d say you shouldn’t be allowed to buy donuts without supervision. Jessica, palladium – which is by far the least valuable of those three metals – is worth about $2000 per Troy Ounce.”
“Oh.” Math again. And, ah . . . “What's a Troy Ounce?”
“About fourteen and a half Troy Ounces in a pound,” he responded as if everyone would know that. “And, to spare you looking it up, 2000 pounds per ton. At today’s prices – not a fair measure, but still – 16 tons of palladium would be worth close to a billion dollars.”
I looked at Janet.
She looked at me. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. How ’bout that? And . . . the other things – the iriddy thingy and the rhododendron – they’re worth more’n palladium?”
“You could say that.” Aguia’ voice contained affection, mirth and exasperation in equal measure. “Iridium is worth twice as much. And a Troy Ounce of rhodium sells for $15,000.”
“Holy shit, Batman!” Janet said.
I shook my head. “What on earth would we do with that much money?”
Janet laughed. “Whadya mean ‘we,’ girlfriend? This responsibility’s all yours!”
General Aguia said, “Jessica, I believe the technical answer to your question is, ‘anything – almost literally anything – you might possibly want.’ Pretty much for the rest of your life. A better answer might be, ‘a very great deal.’”
He was trying to tell me something with that second formulation of his answer, but I didn’t even want to figure it out. I buried my head in my hands. “I don’t know anything about money. I don’t want to know anything about money!”
“You two have spent entirely too long in ivory towers,” Aguia admonished, gently but sternly. “Money is the currency of the world, and its temptations and dangers are easy to see. But at the end of the day, having it enhances your power to do good in the world as well, if that’s what’s in your heart. If you don’t have any good ideas for how to use it – and Lord knows, as long as you’ve both walked the earth, you ought to – loan or give it to someone who does. As for the actual cargo – I am absolutely certain that the U.S. government will be ecstatic to buy it from you and take delivery. All three metals are extremely rare and strategically important. If you want, I’ll confirm that.”
I conferred with Janet silently, then said, “Of course, General. That would be a huge relief.”
We ended the call.
“A billion dollars. Damn.” Janet looked bemused.
“Yeah.” I was stunned. I thought some more about what the old General had said. “I could save Gryphon, I suppose.”
“Hell, girl, you could buy Gryphon. With pocket change.”
I thought about it. “I imagine it’d go at a fire sale price just now.”
We sat in silence, lost in our own thoughts. How did I want to spend my life, when all of this was over? How could I live a life that did not squander the gifts that had been heaped on me – youth . . . beauty . . . wealth?
“Janet,” I said. “I don’t want to run a college. Not even our college.”
She quirked a half smile. “Maybe especially not our college.”
“It’d be pretty stupid, anyway – a college owned by a couple teenagers. Leastwise, that’s what we’d look like.”
“Maybe we could set up a trust or somethin’.” She waved her hand airily. “Get someone else to do it.”
I thought about that. “Yeah – that might work. . . . But Gryphon’s got to change course if it’s going to survive. Or else it won’t deserve to survive.”
She nodded. “But . . . it’d be good if all our colleagues could go to work in a week – and if the students could show up. Changin’ direction takes time when you’re steerin’ a glacier.”
Diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo-do, diddle-loo do!
“Hey, Justin,” I answered.
“Hey, Jessica! I think we’ve got everything ironed out. It was faster than I thought it’d be – Shakon rocks! Anyhow, I’m bringing the draft back to the ship. I’ll go over it with you, then the client. Toni’s going to brief her team. Assuming everything’s good, we can get it signed first thing tomorrow.”
“Fantastic!” I said. “I’ll see you soon!”
“Yeah . . . I can’t wait!” He sounded . . . how had Troi said it? Thirsty! A good word, in my professional opinion.
We ended our call and Janet and I continued our discussion. It became increasingly clear that, while we didn’t want Gryphon to fail, we knew it needed not only money, but a whole new vision. A vision that we were too close to the place to give. On top of which . . . .
“I want a new life, Janet. Even assuming I could be the most bodacious professor in the history of linguistics, I don’t want to do that all over again.”
“And now, for something completely different?” She put verbal air quotes around the question.
As usual, the reference escaped me. “For one thing, maybe it’s time I paid a bit more attention to my own culture. So I’d at least know what the hell you’re talking about most of the time.”
She chuckled. “Most of the time? Girl, you got some catchin’ up to do before you can get past ‘occasionally’! If it helps, that reference wasn’t from your culture. Not exactly, anyway.”
“Just don’t make me read Hawthorne. Or watch Puffinstuff.”
“Those two things do not belong in the same sentence. Please tell me you know that!” she begged.
I just smiled. “What about you, Janet? What do you want to do when you grow . . . down, I guess.”
“God, I don’t know!” She laughed. “Just to be able to contemplate it is amazin’. I’ll be able to do cartwheels again. Cartwheels! Maybe I’ll just become a professional cartwheeler!”
“That’s . . . not a thing. I’m certain that’s not a thing.”
“Who knows?” Her grin was broad. “I sure don’t. But – Aguia’s right. I’ve spent enough time in an ivory tower. I wouldn’t mind livin’ Troi Harris’ life, now that she seems to be done with it. Explorin’ . . . adventurin’ . . . writin’. My own work, for a change. I’m tired of just analyzin’ other people’s writin’ – even stuff I love.”
At some point, we got a call back from General Aguia. “The U.S. government is absolutely interested in buying whatever palladium, iridium and rhodium the People gift you with. We’ll have to work out a price once we’ve had a chance to analyze the material. Probably would involve payments over time, too. I spoke with Luther Corbin. His thought is that the material could be dropped off at the Oak Ridge site where we’ve got the uranium. Does that make sense?”
“I . . . yes? I think . . . I mean, we’re probably going to need a lawyer, aren’t we?” The idea of that much money left me feeling stupid.
“A deal this big? Yes, I would advise you to get a lawyer. But I’ll get something drawn up on this end if you want.”
After that call was done, the phone told me it was 11:00 pm. Speaking of lawyers, Justin should have been back quite a while before. Janet decided to rest a bit, and I went out in search of Worm.
He was in the hold, having just escorted Troi and Daichi out for the night. “Jessica James. We are moving the ship for a few hours, to inspect the uranium offered as payment.”
“You’re moving the ship? What about Justin?” I asked.
“Attorney Justin Abel is aboard. He meets with Elder Mission Leader.”
“Oh . . . I . . . ummm.” I was surprised; Justin had said he was going to talk with me first. It wasn’t really that important, though. I didn’t have much to add concerning the wording of the legal documents. “I guess I’ll go back and wait.”
“Join them,” Worm suggested.
“That’s alright,” I said. “I don’t need to be in for this.”
“Jessica James.” His voice stopped me. “I have been – and shall always be –your friend.” Worm’s expressionless face gave his surprising words an added seriousness. “Join them. You should.”
I have a bad feeling about this. “Okay, Ensign. Lead on.”
We went back to the cabin where we had met earlier in the day. Justin was there already, sitting down, head bowed. The Elder Mission Leader was standing.
Justin jumped when the door opened. “Jessica!”
I eyed them both. “What’s going on, Justin? Elder? Is the agreement good?”
The Elder chittered and Siri took up the translation. “The agreement language is acceptable. I will ‘sign’ it. We were discussing something else. Troi Harris will accompany the mission when we leave. We have the capacity to take one more human, and we believe it would be good for us to do so. Justin Abel thinks we should ask you.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I looked at him, head lowered, eyes down. Finally, I managed to ask, “Justin . . . do you want me to go?”
He looked up and met my eyes. Then he rose and came over, but made no effort to touch me. “No . . . I just think that you should. No one would do a better job representing humanity. And that’s . . . it’s more important than what I want. It just has to be. ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few . . . or the one.’”
“How about the two?” I asked. I shook my head, then looked at the Elder. “You said Justin thought you should ask me. I notice you didn’t say you agreed.”
“You are correct,” he said through Siri. “But it is not because we doubt your ability to represent your species. We have been very pleased with your efforts.”
“Then why?” Despite myself, I wanted to know.
“We assess that however valuable your attributes might be to us, they are more needed on your home world. You have honor, Jessica James. Your species . . . has need of honor.” Siri’s words stopped.
Worm and the Elder looked at each other, a silent communication.
The Elder continued chittering, and Siri’s bland voice added, “Your species cannot spare you . . . but we believe it can spare a lawyer. Justin Abel has impressed us. We have determined that the People might profit from his knowledge.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “We do have other lawyers.” But I was stalling. I knew better. How many lawyers would you trust with this mission?
“Are they interchangeable?” the leader asked, as if he could read my thoughts.
Janet and I had called Justin a “pink unicorn.” “No,” I conceded. “They most definitely aren’t.” My voice barely reached a whisper. “Justin?”
He looked at me, love and pain mixed in his face. “I’m just able, Jessica, not noble. But even I can see that our lives – yours and mine – don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy situation. You’d do the job better. But I’ll do it, if you don’t want to.”
“Want it? I wanted . . . .” My throat closed, silencing me.
“Believe me, I wanted that too.”
I turned my face from his so I could regain my composure, battling to keep the tears from my eyes. You’re not a love-struck seventeen year old, Jessica – even if you look like one! “Elder, I don’t know that my species needs me – or even wants me. But I think my place is here.”
“That is well, Jessica James,” he responded.
I couldn’t last much longer. “If all of you will excuse me . . . .” Without waiting for permission, I turned and oh, so bravely, fled. Once the door shut behind me, I raced back the way we had come. When I got back to the room, the tears finally began to flow.
Did I love him? God, I sure thought so. And I wanted him so badly! Everything had been going so well today. Singh and Dunlop getting arrested (but not Grant!) . . . the U.S. agreeing to supply all 20 tons of U-235 and give the battery technology away for free . . . Janet getting a free shot . . . No one trying to kill me. All good things! And now, suddenly, I’d lost my chance at love, and gotten saddled with a billion dollars or so. Behind every silver lining . . . .
I looked at Janet’s face, so peaceful in sleep, and exhaustion overwhelmed me. Again. I kicked off my shoes, spooned against her back, and pulled a blanket over us both. Damn Justin, and his honor, too! He could find someplace else to crash!
* * * * *
I woke to find Janet giving me a very close appraisal indeed. I blinked rapidly to clear the sleep from my eyes.
“Seem to remember sayin’ that you had to wash and moisturize before going to bed,” she said.
Fine way to start the day . . . . “Uhhhhn,” I responded.
“You look like a raccoon who tried to rob a mouse trap. What happened?”
“Go ’way,” I moaned.
“Right.” She sat up, rubbed her face, and left. I didn’t mean that literally.
But she was back just a couple minutes later with a damp washcloth. “On your back, Jessica. Let me get you cleaned up.”
I did as I was told, and she went to work with the washcloth. I didn’t know what it did for my face, but it certainly succeeded in waking me up. “Thanks, Janet.”
“Our intrepid lawyer is sleepin’ in the hold on some cushions, like we did the first time we were here. Want to tell me about it?”
“He’s going with them. When they leave.”
“Ah. Yep, that’d do it.” She didn’t seem all that upset.
Maybe if he’d written some fiction, she’d be more worked up about it! “That’s it? Nothing more to say?”
“It’s terrible, for sure,” she said promptly. “Might destroy their entire civilization!”
I made a face. “Not funny, Janet!”
She put a hand on my cheek. “I know, Hon. Though I do worry about it. But look, I know this purely sucks. He’s a good man, an’ I thought you two were good together. It was easy to ‘ship’ you, as the girls in my classes would say. But I don’t really know him all that well . . . and truth to tell, neither do you. I know it’s not much comfort, but I guarantee this isn’t your last chance for romance.”
I thought about that for a few minutes. Then a few more. I put a hand on top of Janet’s and squeezed. “You’re right. I mean, I’m beyond frustrated. But I lived for sixty years, even if I’m not sixty any more. I’m old enough to know that life goes on.”
“‘Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone?’” she asked. “Don’t worry . . . it’ll be back.”
I closed my eyes and got my brain in gear. Thought of everything that had to happen today. “Right,” I sighed, sitting up. “Hi ho, hi ho.”
“Told you not to talk to me like that,” she scolded.
Remembering the conversation – and what had sparked it – I smiled. “I’ll try to be better about it, you brazen strumpet!”
I got up, found the bag Averil Livingston had packed for us, and got out a change of clothes. Quickly and efficiently, I stripped, then put on blessedly fresh underwear and a clean top and pants. It occurred to me, as I was finishing, that I was no longer remotely self-conscious stripping naked in front of Janet. Two months ago, I’d have been mortified. Two months ago, I’d have been male.
Janet padded over and got changed as well (Averil had included all the clothes we’d left behind at the hotel). I decided I was not going to face Justin looking less than my best – or at least, the best I could manage on short provisions. I took a moment to brush my hair and put on some light morning makeup.
Janet smiled. “Ready for battle?”
I nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” My phone said it was just after 7:00.
“Come back with your shield. Or on it.”
I took a deep breath and went into the hold. I expected that Justin would be up, but he was still sleeping in the far corner.
I walked over and looked down at him. He really was a beautiful man. A good man. Such a shame! On impulse, I knelt down, bent, and kissed his sleeping lips, touching his cheek lightly with my right hand.
His eyes opened. “Hello, Gorgeous.” His voice was soft, warm . . . and sad.
“None of that, now,” I admonished. “Let’s not waste the time we’ve got left with tears and regrets. Now get yourself up, and let’s face the day . . . together.”
His eyes held mine. “I love you.”
I rose and looked down at him. “I know.” I smiled and left, looking for Ensign Worm.
I found him in the “Bridge” with the rest of the crew that I had come to know. “Good morning,” I said, entering.
“Jessica James,” he said in greeting. “We are almost back over your nation’s capital.”
“Where have you been, while I was sleeping?” I asked.
The Elder Mission Leader in the Captain’s chair chittered, and Siri translated. “Around the world.”
Worm added. “Better time we made than David Niven.”
The Elder continued. “We went to the site designated by the United States, confirmed the presence of twenty tons of 90% U-235 uranium, and dropped wards to guard the material. We also traveled to sites designated by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to determine whether they had met the terms of their bids.”
I was confused. “Why? You don’t have room for more HEU, do you?”
“We do not,” he confirmed. “We wanted to learn more about these peoples.”
“Pure curiosity? Well, I can certainly respect that.” I smiled. “What did you find?”
“There was no material at the coordinates specified in the Chinese communication. The Russian Federation had assembled the twenty tons in its bid. Purity was someone less than specified in their bid, though still in the acceptable range.”
“Interesting,” I said. “China must have decided to withdraw from the bidding – or at least, not hazard their HEU.”
“Why would do that they?” Worm inquired.
I shrugged. “Hard to know for sure. Lack of trust, maybe. They had to know that the thing they requested was a poor fit for evaluation under a “greatest good” standard. And, they didn’t have enough spare HEU to satisfy your request in full.”
“You will inform them both that their bids were not accepted?” the Elder asked.
I nodded. “Yes, sir . . . But not until we have a signed agreement with the U.S. government.”
“Attorney Justin Abel said the same,” he replied.
Unexpectedly, Worm said, “Jessica James . . . we are sorry to you part from Justin Abel. You would have human worms created?”
I was about to throw out my usual query, but stopped myself. “Thank you, Ensign. We were . . . assessing our compatibility. I will miss him.” I smiled, thinking of Janet. Finally, I had the right allusion! “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
I took my leave and went back to the sleeping cabin, where I found both Justin and Janet.
Janet looked concerned . . . but not, it turned out, for the reason that I had thought. “I got a call this morning . . . from Grant, if you can believe it.”
“No shit!” I was shocked. “Isn’t he supposed to be on the run?”
“Oh, he is,” she answered. “But he called to warn me – to warn us both. He’s still got contacts in the PRC from his spy activity. Apparently they aren’t real happy with you. They’ll wait ’til the aliens are gone, but after that . . . the gloves are coming off.”
“They weren’t exactly a barrel of laughs when the gloves were on,” I said, remembering the eyes of their assassin. I thought furiously for a moment. I didn’t want to spend all my time looking over my shoulder! We needed to throw them off our tracks. Disappear . . . hmmm. “What’s the plan today, Justin?”
“Meeting at the White House at 9:00 for the signing,” he answered. The President wants all of us there – he wants a photo, for the record, for when they tell the world in November.”
Janet snickered. “Pics, or it didn’t happen? I thought we didn’t exist.”
“We’re slipping in as a couple of Aguia’s irregulars to talk about energy issues. Got some fake names, IDs and everything. Anyhow, Elder won’t risk any of his people around us crazy humans again, so he’s signing here. In fact, he already has. So we’ll bring the agreements – and the formula – to the White House. Tonight, they’re going to pick up the uranium at Oak Ridge.”
“We’re bringin’ the formula with us this morning but they aren’t pickin’ up the uranium ’til tonight?” Janet shook her head. “Decided to trust us after all?”
Justin chuckled. “Not exactly. They put some sort of warding device on the U-235 stockpile after they scanned it last night. The government couldn’t move the material right now if they wanted to.”
It was fascinating, but I was only half listening, my mind whirling in a completely different direction. “I need to talk to Worm,” I said. “I’ve got the perfect disguise to wear today.”
Janet looked at me. “Not Singh, I hope!”
I laughed, and decided to find out if my new voice could carry a tune. “From Singh-ing I’ll refrain!” Hey, girl! . . . that wasn’t half bad! I explained my idea and we talked about it. Made some refinements. Then called Luther Corbin.
* * * * *
At 8:50 am, a tall, spare man with iron gray hair and ferocious eyebrows stepped into the Roosevelt Room across from the Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House. He was wearing a coal gray suit and a light gray tie, and looked like a well-dressed version of the scholar he had always been. One last hurrah for James Marshall Wainwright, the Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics.
There were quite a few people in the room, milling around. The Secretaries of Defense and Energy were there, along with the President’s Science Advisor, Deputy Chief of Staff Tanya Rodriguez-Tolland, Assistant White House Counsel Toni Shakon, Acting National Security Advisor Katherine Kurtz, General Stanley Aguia, Dave Grillo, Professor Kayla Cormier, and – to my surprise (and, no doubt, Janet’s dismay) – Gavin Grimm. We’d picked up Troi Harris and Daichi Kurokawa on our way in, and they entered with Janet, Justin and me.
Talk stopped momentarily when we entered. Averil Livingston’s face lit up with a smile and she began to clap. In moments, the whole room joined her, causing me to blush cardinal red. The atmosphere was completely different from any of my earlier meetings. Excited, almost electric. People come to Washington to be part of history, but Washington had never seen anything like this.
As the applause mercifully subsided, Averil came over and, surprisingly, held out both hands. I took them in mine. Unlike the other illusions the aliens had created for me, this one extended to both touch and voice. Apparently the energy budget for the enhanced illusion was enough to power a small city. But I needed it for now.
“Well . . . you look very distinguished,” she said, smiling.
I smiled back. “I bet Grant would have an opinion.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it, when I heard. Earl Grant!”
“I know, right? Listen . . . Thank you. For everything. You’ve been amazing.”
“Apart from having you arrested and getting you shot,” she said ruefully.
“Not a highlight, for sure,” I chuckled. “But really. None of this would have happened without you pushing it on the inside.”
“You got that right!” The diminutive Secretary of Defense joined us, and was looking up at me. “Liked you better when you were a normal height, Professor!” His broad grin was infectious.
Stanley Aguia drifted behind Secretary Bradley. “Now, now, Jack. We offered you the rack, back at the Academy. I distinctly recall that you declined.” He gave me a quick appraisal and a slow smile. “Professor Wainwright. It’s good to see you.” He placed just the slightest additional weight on the penultimate word of his sentence.
“Never mind that!” Gavin Grimm was practically hopping up and down. “The formula! Do you have the formula!!!”
Just then the door opened to admit a young man, well-built and ruggedly handsome – yep, despite my illusion, I still noticed! – who was clearly a member of the President’s security detail. His eyes swept the room before he moved forward. President Taryn followed him, accompanied by Chief of Staff Luther Corbin. A photographer trailed in their wake.
“Good morning, everyone,” the President said briskly. “Let’s take care of business first. Adam, call the shot.”
It took a few minutes, but the photographer had everyone where he wanted them. The President was seated, naturally, with multiple originals of the agreement, each already signed by the Elder Mission Leader, in front of him. Janet and I stood on either side of him, flanked by Cabinet members, General Aguia, and the rest of the group.
“I’m standin’ on his right side, and you know what that means!” Janet joked.
I grinned. “I think so – You’re a sheep and I’m the G.O.A.T., right?”
She stuck her tongue out at me. Hopefully, Adam caught that on film. Or pixels, or . . . . whatever.
Once Adam was done with the stills, he put his camera on a tripod and rolled video as the President signed six originals.
I expected Taryn to say a few words, but he kept quiet. When he was done with signing, he smiled for the camera, then said, “Thank you all for coming.” He rose. “Professor Wainwright, Professor Seldon, will you join me for a moment in the Oval Office? Mr. Corbin? Dr. Livingston? General Aguia?”
We all nodded – naturally, that’s not one of those occasions when you say, “Gee, sorry, I’ve got to wash my hair.”
“Oh, Professor Wainwright . . . I almost forgot. You’ve got something else for me, right?” Taryn was smiling.
“Yes sir,” I said, and handed him a folder.
He opened it, glanced at the contents briefly, and chuckled. “Professor Grimm, would you take a look at this for me, please?”
Gavin practically fell over himself getting possession of the folder.
The President led everyone he’d invited across the hall, and this time, no one followed us in. Not even the Detail.
Once more, as soon as the door closed behind us, I said, “You can drop the illusion now, Worm.” As James Wainwright, I’d been a little shorter than Stanley Aguia and a few inches shorter than the imposing Luther Corbin, but with the illusion gone I was once again the shortest person in the room, though Averil didn’t have me by much.
“It’s good to have you back, Jessica,” the President said, a twinkle in his eye. “And if you’re still listening, ‘Ensign Worm,’ on behalf of the government and people of the United States of America, I want to applaud your mastery of human aesthetics.”
I blushed furiously. “Perhaps you should stop listening for a bit, Ensign,” I murmured.
“Not that you didn’t cut a very nice figure as a man,” Averil said.
“Yeah, well . . . he could clean up okay,” Janet said, critically. “When he took the time. Which, he seldom did.”
“Thanks, Janet!” I laughed.
Janet and I took one couch, opposite Livingston and Aguia. The President took his customary chair near the Resolute Desk, and Corbin once again completed the circle, taking a chair at the other end of the couch arrangement.
“I want to thank you both for everything you’ve done,” Taryn said. “Luther and Stanley filled me in on the issue of your payment from The People last night.” He looked at his Chief of Staff apologetically. “If you’ll forgive the informality just this once.”
Corbin chuckled his deep, bass rumble. “Mr. President, you can call people whatever you like. Just don’t be surprised if none of your guests call you by your first name!” A linguist could listen to Corbin talk forever.
I smiled and shook my head. “Not in this room . . . Mr. President.”
The President grinned, then looked at General Aguia expectantly.
Aguia leaned forward. “I think we’ve got some interlocking problems here, and hopefully we can get them sorted out. First, in light of the information that you received from a questionable source, you both may – may – be in danger from Chinese agents once the alien ship leaves. Maybe Russian too, for all we know.
“Second, while we intend to reveal the existence of the aliens and the source of the battery technology in November, there’s no way to explain what’s happened to you before then. And . . . it may be better not to discuss the youthening drugs until people have gotten comfortable with the idea that we aren’t alone in the universe. It could cause bad feelings. The Russians and Chinese know about them, of course – but they each have good reasons to keep the information from getting out.
“Third, James Marshall Wainwright’s apparent disappearance has already caused a criminal investigation in Massachusetts. That’s likely to go nowhere, since – based on what Mr. Corbin learned from you this morning, Professor Seldon is also going to be unrecognizable in a month’s time. But still . . . .
“And finally, we have the problem of sixteen tons of incredibly precious metals being dropped on our doorstep. Not a bad problem to have, obviously . . . but absolutely, it’s something that creates a few complications.”
He looked around. “Am I missing anything?”
I said, “Identification. I don’t have any, and, as you just pointed out, Janet won’t either. None that will work, anyway. And, ahh . . . we may want access to at least some of the payment fast. The college where we’ve taught for the past thirty years just announced that it’s closing its doors. We’d like to do something about that, but students and faculty will already be scrambling for alternatives.”
Aguia nodded. “I assumed the first. The second . . . well, that is a complication. Let’s talk about it.”
The President said, “I’ve been in politics for fifty years, give or take, and I’ve never encountered a set of problems quite like these. But I’m sure you’ve got some ideas, Stanley. You always do.”
“Jessica proposed the first solution this morning,” Aguia replied, “and it makes a lot of sense. Give every appearance, to anyone who knows about the aliens, that Jessica and Janet – or, more specifically, Janet and a miraculously restored James – left with the aliens. Let that leak out to the Chinese and Russians. If they think they’re no longer on earth, they’ll drop it.”
I chimed in, “Even if they aren’t sure about that, they might well believe that Jessica went back to being James. This morning’s photoshoot should help, when you release the picture.”
Aguia concurred. “If they think the People reversed James Wainwright’s transformation, they won’t recognize Jessica as the same person. There really aren’t too many people who actually know what she looks like anyway.”
“Though I imagine the descriptions fairly pop,” the President observed.
Corbin coughed. Whether repressively or from humor, I couldn’t tell.
“Meanwhile, we get new identifications for the Professors. The best. Birth Certificates . . . medical records. The works. We can do Jessica’s now and Janet’s in a month. Let them vanish for a while. We don’t need to know where, and it’s better that we don’t.”
The President said, “We’re not talking about a long time, though, right? I mean, it would be awkward for either of them to claim their old identities before we go public with the news in November. But after that . . . Well, I’d think that even the Russians and the Chinese will calm down. Once we actually provide the technology to the whole world for free, they’ll at least know that they weren’t cheated. They’ll get the same thing we’re getting – without having to surrender their ‘precious’ uranium stockpiles.”
“Except they won’t get the international PR boost that we will,” Averil said, smugly.
“Yeah, there’s that.” The President looked a bit smug himself.
Aguia nodded. “I think you’re probably right, Mr. President. I would expect that the fuss will die down by next spring and the rest of the story can be told.” Looking at Janet and me, he added, “To the extent there are any lingering threats, by spring you should also be in a better position to protect yourselves. You will certainly have the resources to do so effectively.”
“I don’t want to have 24/7 security all my life!” I protested.
“Welcome to my world,” the President said dryly. “You get used to it, I hate to say. But it’s something you’ll have to deal with, whether or not the Chinese and Russians know who you are. Security is part of the package when you’re as rich as you’re about to be.”
I shook my head. I’d been right all along. Money’s a curse!
Corbin said, “We’ll need to set up some corporations for you – probably a couple of shells, so that your identities are protected – and then the proceeds from the sale of the materials to the U.S. government can be put in the corporate accounts.”
Averil interjected, “We’ll need to assay the materials, but . . . if it’s what the People told you, it’ll be worth billions of dollars.”
Aguia nodded cautiously. “Of course, the amount of material we’re talking about is a sizable percentage of the world’s known supply of the three metals. If it was dropped on the market all at once, it would significantly change the world price.”
Taryn waved the point away. “We’ll deal with it. Naturally, whatever amount we agree on, we’ll pay you, Jessica – and then you’ll pay almost half of it back in the form of federal taxes. Sucks to be you!”
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” Corbin intoned.
“Blessed be the name of the Lord!” I laughed. “So I’ll be only half as rich as I never wanted to be.”
“Something like that,” the President said. “You are an unusual person, Jessica James. . . . Most people would be happy to be rich.”
I shrugged. “I never wanted to worry about money. Or think about it, really. But this kind of wealth . . . mostly, it just seems like a big responsibility. I don’t need anything like that, so I’ll have to spend my life figuring out how to do something worthwhile with it.” I looked at Aguia and said, apologetically, “And I promise, General. I will try.
Luther Corbin chuckled. “I wish The People could turn you into a virus, so we could use you to infect the whole world.”
“Don’t give ’em ideas,” Janet warned. “For all we know, they could!”
I thought about my conversation with the Elder. They might have something like that in mind – metaphorically, praise be!
Averil said, “I understand where you’re coming from, Jessica. And I admire it, even. But . . . Saving Gryphon College, while a worthy goal, is just the first good thing you can do. You can have an amazingly impactful life.”
“Think about it, Jess,” Janet urged. “You know the sayin’, “Be yourself . . . unless you can be Batman?’ You actually can be Batman!”
I looked at my petite, curvaceous form and laughed. “No, actually, I think that one’s out.”
Her gurgling laugh joined mine. “Well, damn. Woulda been cool if you could.”
Corbin chimed in. “As far as an advance payment is concerned, we can probably do something just as soon as we’ve done a preliminary assay. Maybe around $100 million, assuming the material matches the aliens’ description.”
I shook my head. “And then we’ve got to somehow negotiate with the President and the Regents. God . . . I don’t know how to do this. Any of it!”
President Taryn gave me a kindly look. “We’ve got confidence in you, Emissary. You’ve been amazingly resourceful to date.”
Aguia was looking thoughtful. “I expect you’ll figure out how to really use your resources in less time than you think. But I can probably help with your immediate problem, if you’d like. I’ve got a lot of contacts in academia, and I’m a known quantity there in a way that you two aren’t – or at least, won’t be just at the moment.”
“Really!” I brightened. “Oh, my God! Yes, yes, yes!!! Any help you could provide would be an absolute godsend!”
“She’ll even pay you – real well, too, I bet!” Janet added.
I nodded enthusiastically.
Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a loud buzz. The President turned his head and said, “What is it, Lilly?”
A voice responded from the intercom. “Professor Gavin Grimm asked to join your meeting, Mr. President. He said you might be expecting him.”
“Send him in,” the President replied.
Janet looked rebellious, but for once held her peace.
The door opened to admit Professor Grimm. Man, I thought, Don’t ever play poker!
Before the President could say anything, he practically danced into the room and stopped beside Corbin’s chair. “It’s all materials we’ve got, Mr. President – the base is silicon, not surprisingly, but the reagents are a surprise. And the manufacturing process is absolutely straightforward. I could do test-runs on this at my lab within a week.”
“Silicon,” Aguia said. “That’s interesting.”
The President laughed. “Well, how ’bout that? The Saudis are gonna purely hate this revolution, of course. But on the bright side – for them – it’s not like they’ve got a shortage of sand!”
Janet chuckled. “There it is . . . your moment of zen.”
We wrapped up our meeting soon thereafter. The President rose and shook my hand, then Janet’s. “I wish I could pin some medals on you, right now, today. But I hope you feel safe enough to reclaim your old identities, along with your new ones, in a few months. You’ve got all the time in the world – but the world can’t wait!”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. “I never imagined I’d get closer to you than a television set. And now . . . I hope I get the chance to meet you again.”
I contacted Worm and asked him to restore the illusion of my former physique. As I turned to shut the door behind me, I heard Taryn say to Corbin, “Alright. What’s next?”
* * * * *
Half an hour later, Janet, Justin, Troi and Daichi were headed back to Troi’s house in Sterling, where the People would pick us up. General Aguia had arranged cars for us. Justin, Janet and Daichi were in one; Troi grabbed me and pulled me into the other.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“Janet talked to me on the ride in,” she responded. “Told me . . . Jessica. James. Damn, it’s hard to think of you right when you look like an old guy. Anyhow. You have to believe me, I had no idea!”
I looked at her, trying to figure out what had her so upset. “I’m sorry, Troi. Maybe I’m just too overwhelmed to be thinking straight. What are you talking about?”
“The lawyer. Justin Abel. I had no idea the People were going to ask him to come. Not to mention, that he was your boyfriend!” She was actually wringing her hands. I’d never seen anyone do that.
I put a hand over hers, just to still them. “I didn’t think you did, Troi. The People clearly sprang it on Justin yesterday night – well after you’d accepted. And anyway . . . he was never my boyfriend.”
“That’s not what Janet told me,” she said.
“Janet,” I responded with some asperity, “Is a marvelous woman and an incurable busybody!” I softened my tone. “There was something there. I think there was. But we never had a chance to explore it.”
She bit her lip. “Jessica. Will you do something for me?”
“Of course!” I said.
“Take my place.”
“Hell, no!!!” I blurted out without even thinking.
“Well, that was a quick reversal,” she said with a quirky smile that vanished almost at once. “I’m serious. You are the best envoy we could have – and you would get your chance with this guy. Justin. The lawyer. You know who I mean! Please, Jessica. I don’t want to take this from you!”
The car was quiet, but for the white noise of tires against the asphalt. Finally, I started to laugh.
“I’m dead serious,” she repeated.
I shook my head and brought my perverse sense of humor back under control. “You’ve repaid me for the temptation I offered you yesterday. A lifetime with Justin!”
I smiled, and patted her hand. “No, Troi. He really is a wonderful man . . . as I hope you’ll discover. But I told you already, you’re the envoy we always should have had. I have – or had, at least! – a well-ordered mind. But yours is original. You have no idea how rare that is. You are unique in the best possible way. Besides . . . .”
I fell silent.
She let it go for a minute, then prodded me. “Besides?”
I looked at my hands – an old man’s hands, once again. The hands of a man who had let life slip away from him, once. An incongruously feminine smile curled my lips upward. “And besides. I would never be happy without Janet Seldon in my life. We’ve never been lovers, but she’s been the best friend I could ever have. No way – none, zero, zip – would I go off to the back of wherever and leave her behind.”
Troi looked at me carefully. “You mean that?”
“With all my heart.”
“Then you are incredibly lucky. And you’re right . . . you should never walk away from your bae.” Her eyes were bright with tears.
“I won’t,” I promised. I wasn’t familiar with the term she used, but its connotation was reasonably clear from context. “One way or another, I won’t.”
She came to a sudden decision and nodded sharply. Then she pressed the intercom button to speak with the driver, who was separated from the passenger compartment by a plexiglass partition. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you do me a favor? We need to stop by Tysons Corner.”
“Whatever you like, Ma’am,” he replied. “I’m paid by the hour.”
“What’s at Tysons Corner?” I asked.
“You’ll see!” she replied, cryptically. She sent Janet a text to let her know what we were doing so she wouldn’t worry that we’d been kidnapped, shot, dumped in a river or something similarly unpleasant and final.
We got out of the car at a large shopping mall and she marched me inside. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Bloomingdales,” she said, in a voice of iron.
“Because?”
“You won’t have forever. But as God is my witness, you will have now. C’mon!”
Her words suddenly got through to me and I understood just what she was proposing. I stopped dead in the middle of the mall.
She turned back towards me and gave me a look, but then thought better about saying anything.
I thought for a moment, and reached an instant decision.
Damn if she isn’t right!
“Lead on!” I ordered.
She grinned. “That’s the spirit! She grabbed my arm and propelled me forward.
As we were passing another shop, I said, “Some nice things there, Troi. Should we look?”
She looked and laughed. “Ann Taylor? Be serious! With your build? I mean, your real build . . . or, your new real build . . . Fuck! You know what I mean! Anyway. Hard no. Ann Taylor is for gals like me that need to look sleek, ’cuz we don’t have all that much by way of curves.”
“Uhh . . . yeah. That would not be my problem!” I let her lead me to Bloomingdales.
But once we got inside, I took control, and marched us straight to the lingerie section. “Let’s start with something fun,” I said, getting into it. Soon we were checking out the offerings, commenting on colors, cuts and fabrics.
I saw a woman looking at me strangely. Her expression was puzzled and more than a bit hostile.
I looked her straight in the eye and – for the last time – furrowed my mighty Wainwright brows into the trademark glower that had cowed generations of students. Without breaking eye contact, I said in an aside to Troi, “for my money, the Natori bra has the best combination of comfort and style. I love how it feels – and just adore how it makes me feel!” Allowing my brows to return to parade rest, I gave our interloper a smile and a wink.
Her eyes bugged out and she fled.
Troi managed to hold in her laughter until the woman had left, but then she exploded. “Oh, dear God! You have no idea how much I enjoyed that. If I’d only had that kind of confidence the first time I snuck into a department store to buy a bra, back before I transitioned!”
I chuckled. “Well, Janet could tell you . . . my first time wasn’t pretty. At all!”
We got lingerie. And shoes. A bit of naughty sleepwear. And, finally, a dress. I had one like it, hanging in the closet in Janet’s spare bedroom, but this one was even better. Scarlet red, silky, strapless, a slit practically up to the thigh . . . . Oh, yeah. That was my dress! I couldn’t try it on, but I knew my sizes by now. All of them.
Troi insisted on paying. “I’m not going to have any use for my money where I’m going,” she said when I protested. “Don’t worry about it.”
So I didn’t. We had quite a few bags with us when we got to Troi’s house and sent the driver off. Twenty minutes later, my wing-tipped oxfords were hitting the deck of the alien’s ship.
Janet was there to meet us. When she saw the bags, she smiled. “Nice work, Troi.” She looked at me. “You sure?”
I felt butterflies in my stomach, but ruthlessly slew them all. One, two, one two, and through and through, her vorpal sword went snicker-snack! “Hell, yes!”
“Then let us help you.” She looked at Troi. “Justin’s in his cabin . . . doin’ some work to transition his clients. I talked to Worm and got us a changin’ area.”
I was astonished. “What was in your text, Troi? Jesus!!!”
“Well, not Him,” she answered. “But enough information to go on. Janet’s no dummy.”
They led me into the cabin where I’d met with the Elder . . . and where I’d learned that Justin would be leaving. I set down the bags and looked at my hands, one more time. Goodbye, James. “Worm, you can drop my illusion now.”
It took Janet and Troi a surprisingly long time to get me prepared. The dress . . . the heels . . . the stockings . . . the hair . . . the makeup. A hint of jasmine behind each ear, and in the hollow between my breasts. But finally, I was ready. Wasn’t I? Snicker snack!
“So much as breathe, and you’re gonna pop right outta that,” Troi giggled.
Janet smirked. “This look ain’t designed to last.” She looked at the ceiling. “Worm – When Jessica enters Justin’s cabin, give them ten seconds. Then I want you to play music through the speakers. And shut off all your damned microphones!”
Worm’s voice came through the intercom in our cabin. “Is not for science?”
“Ah, no,” she replied. “It most assuredly isn’t!”
“Acknowledged, Professor Seldon.”
“Okay, girl,” she said. She flicked up the slit in my skirt, and tucked something into the top of my stockings. “Supplies. Don’t forget them!”
“Yes, Mom!” I said.
Troi hugged me – carefully! “Damn, gurl! You slay!”
Thanks to my shortened tendons, I had no trouble with the five-inch heels of my footwear, which – Troi had helpfully informed me – are colloquially known as “fuck-me” shoes. I should have been embarrassed.
I wasn’t.
Justin looked up when I came into the room. His eyes bulged and he stood up slowly, a look of awe on his mobile face.
Very satisfactory.
An eternity passed, motionless and silent. Then the intercom began to play a classic, and I walked to where he stood. Slowly. Teasingly. Keeping perfect time with the music.
Ravel’s Bolero.
* * * * *
“It’s time, love.” I gave Justin a smile.
He shrugged his coat on. “Okay. I mean; wouldn’t miss it. Except . . . .”
I grinned. “Yeah. Except.”
We’d spent the afternoon and evening together, taking a brief break for some dinner. But it was now 11:00 p.m., and the ship had been brought to rest over the Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Justin and I joined Janet, Troi and Worm in the hold, and the People made the bottom hull transparent so that we could watch.
The first thing we observed were objects, dimly lit by the pale light of a waning crescent moon, descended towards the ground.
My palladium prison.
Sensing my thoughts, Justin gave me a squeeze.
When the last of the objects had settled onto the ground in the middle of the complex, other objects broke loose from earth’s gravity and floated gracefully towards the ship, guided by the tractor beam that the Russian Federation would never get.
Worm watched their progress avidly. “My, oh my . . . what a wonderful day!” he murmured.
They passed below and then behind us; the cargo area was apparently far back in the ship. We felt, more than heard, the closing of the cargo bay door.
A sense of power, of energy, of purpose, seemed to surge through the ship. Worm shuddered, threw back his head, and practically howled, Stelllllllllaaaa!!!
We looked at him, startled and nonplussed.
Janet drawled, “is that a ten-gallon hat, or are you just enjoying the show?”
He lowered his head and said, “Gonna rock around the clock tonight!”
It was done.
The ship returned to its resting point over Sterling, Virginia less than an hour later. All of us terrestrials were going to be staying at Troi’s house for the remainder of the night.
Troi gave Janet her bedroom. “I’ve got stuff to do,” she said. “And not really enough time to get it done. I’ll have plenty of time for sleeping, soon!” She disappeared into her study.
Justin and I took the guest bedroom. I figured he’d have plenty of time to sleep later, too, so he didn’t get much. But he fell asleep around 4:00 a.m.
For a half hour, I lay beside him, propped on one arm, memorizing the lines of his face. The texture of his dark hair. The warmth of his body and timing of his breathing, of the slow rise and fall of his chest. His scent, so unlike my own, elusive, hints of sandalwood and musk. I lovingly recalled every touch . . . every caress . . . each sweet and tender kiss . . . .
I realized, lying there in the predawn darkness, that I had completed my personal passage into womanhood and my new life. The love I felt for this good and decent man had allowed me to breach the last psychological barriers my former self retained and sweep them away. I had held a man’s sex with wonder in my eyes and longing in my heart, feeling no strangeness. I had fondled it, kissed it, and welcomed it home. He had buried himself deep inside me, and I had opened myself to him – completely, willingly, joyously. An instant of sharp pain, and wave after wave of pleasure so intense it made me cry out in astonishment. Just remembering brought tears.
“You are so very beautiful,” I whispered.
Even in his sleep, he heard my voice. He smiled.
With a sigh, I pulled myself out of bed and padded to the attached bathroom. I did my business without thinking. At least the toilet didn’t see fit to bathe and warm me! Then I slipped into the nightgown and peignoir that Troi bought me at Bloomingdales, and went into the kitchen.
Troi was there, sitting at her kitchen table, a mug of tea in her hands.
“Can I join you?” I asked, not wanting to disturb her.
“Please. Want some tea?”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
“I made a pot.” She grabbed a mug and poured me some. “Earl Grey, hot.”
We sat in companionable silence. Dawn was still some time away.
Almost simultaneously, we asked, “Any regrets?”
I giggled. “You first.”
She looked at me over the rim of her mug. “No. I’ll miss this place . . . I’ll miss writing. Well, I still can write. I’ll miss the feedback I get from the readers, though. If I write more now, I don’t know that anyone will ever see it. But with all that said . . . I’m Gucci. Life here was hard for me and I coped by making it all an adventure. This is the greatest adventure anyone’s ever had. To infinity, and beyond!”
“Wait . . . you can’t go further than . . . .”
She stopped me with a smile. “I know. Janet mentioned you were like this. You need to get out more!” Putting down her cup, she said, “Now your turn.”
I shook my head. “No regrets – and that’s largely thanks to you. I wouldn’t have had the guts to approach Justin, knowing he was leaving, unless you’d pushed me. And what a memory!”
“You’ll always have Paris?” Her smile was a touch rueful.
I laughed. “Well, Sterling, anyway. The setting doesn’t matter. We didn’t get out much.”
That made her chuckle. “Yeah, I noticed. But . . . you’re sure you don’t want to go in my place?”
“More certain than ever. Which is no knock on Justin, believe me. But if he’d left – if we hadn’t had yesterday, and last night – I’d have had regrets for the rest of my life. It’s hard to let him go, but . . . I can, now. He’s an adventurer at heart, like you. Like Janet too, I guess. I’m . . . I’m something else. I don’t know what yet.”
“You da bomb, girl, that’s what you are! I wish I had a bit longer to get to know you. I really do.” She fell silent, drinking her tea.
In the distance, a rooster misread the time.
“Jessica . . . Do you think . . . I mean. Damn. I don’t know how to ask this. But . . . .”
I smiled, understanding at once. “You’ll be okay, Troi. You’re an amazing woman – an amazing human. And Justin is a fine, fine man. Give each other a chance. Please. For both your sakes . . . and for my sake too.”
We talked for a bit longer. I wished I could have gotten to know her better too. But I had enough time with her to know that Justin would be in the very best of hands.
Janet joined us as the sun was coming up. Seeing us together, she smiled. “Told you she was special, Jessica! Don’t worry, Troi. I’ll get her to read your books. Every one of them!”
“Well, I’ll need something to do, while we’re getting through your transition time!” I replied.
“When are you getting your shot, Janet?” Troi asked.
“Worm’s bringing it tonight when they come back from the shake-down cruise.” They were taking the ship on a ‘short hop’ toward lunar orbit just to test the trim of the cargo hold.
I shook my head. “I hope to God they don’t crash. Worm seemed positively high last night!”
Troi followed up with the one question I’d lacked the nerve to ask Janet. “So . . . are you just going to get younger, or did you opt to change your gender, too?”
Janet smiled and poured herself some coffee – we’d just made a pot. “I couldn’t decide,” she said casually, sitting down with us. “I told him to surprise me.”
* * * * *
The sun had set, and the four of us were together on a golf course, far from prying eyes.
We’d had a good day. Justin and Troi both had a lot to do to tie up the loose ends of their lives. Leaving all of their money behind complicated things, but also made them simpler. Justin’s clients in civil cases were more than willing to just take his money rather than fight in court for their adversaries’.
But it hadn’t been all work, and I’d made sure there was time for Troi and Justin to get to know each other better while there were still other people around to provide a bit of a buffer. It was just a beginning, but it had been a good beginning.
Justin and I had our memories. And we’d said our good-byes, quietly and tenderly, before coming out to the site.
Worm descended from the sky at a leisurely pace and landed lightly beside us. He still had an air of excitement, of anticipation, about him – an energy he had lacked in our earlier encounters. But his voice seemed under control. “Are ready, Janet Seldon?”
Her grin split her face. “Boo-yeah, Ensign! Hit me!”
He jabbed a large needle into her gluteus maximus. He removed it, looked at her with his owl eyes, and said, “Nanu, Nanu, Professor.”
“Nanu, nanu to you too, Worm,” she said, the wince from the shot modulating her grin. Maybe “grincing” should be a word?
“Justin Abel . . . Troi Harris. You prepared are?”
They looked at Janet and me.
Janet’s grin conquered the remains of her wince. “Smiles, everyone! Smiles! You two represent the whole damned human race. No pressure. But, ya know . . . DFU!”
I smiled at them both. Bravely.
They smiled back, and then gave Worm the nod.
The Ensign turned to me last, his face, as always, largely devoid of human expression. He raised his right hand and splayed his fingers. “Live long and prosper, Jessica James.”
I touched my hand to my heart. “Godspeed you home . . . my friend.”
“Three to beam up.”
They drifted skyward. Janet and I watched until they were gone from sight.
“Damn. I’m going to miss all of them,” I said.
“My butt hurts,” Janet replied, prosaically. “Did your butt hurt like this?”
We returned to Troi’s house for the night, intent on leaving at first light for the most obscure locale we could think of. But as we walked into the house, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but the ID indicated that the call originated in “Orion’s Shadow.”
I put it on speaker. “Hello?”
“Jessica James,” Siri’s voice responded. “We are secured and ready for departure. When we reach our destination, your name will live forever in the Story of the People.”
All I could manage was a hoarse, but heart-felt, “thank you.”
“Ensign Worm, the uranium is secured?”
“Boo-yeah!” the Ensign replied, echoing Janet.
“Set course for home. Maximum Warp.”
Worm’s response was an enthusiastic, “Yabba Dabba Doo!!”
The last thing we heard from them was music that made Janet first chuckle, then laugh out loud. I didn’t recognize it initially, but as soon as the refrain pounded through the phone’s speaker, beautiful, healing laughter bubbled up from the very depths of my soul.
Worm had a sense of humor after all.
Lookin' for some hot stuff baby this evenin'
I need some hot stuff baby tonight
I want some hot stuff baby this evenin'
Gotta have some hot stuff
Gotta have some love tonight!
* * * * *
Epilogue: All Good Things
November 8, 2022
Aberdeen, South Dakota
We had just finished breakfast and were looking forward to another busy day of doing good while still remaining unobtrusive.
“You have to do the cleanup, ’cuz you borrowed my blue dress!” To emphasize her point, Janet poured herself a second cup of coffee.
Her transition had gone far more easily than mine, largely because she had not, in the end, changed genders. President’s Taryn’s compliments must have finally convinced Ensign Worm that there was nothing wrong with my proportions, because Janet shared every luscious curve of them, coupled with a face that would melt the hardest heart. Kind of a cross between the two Hepburns, I thought.
It was nice being able to share clothes.
The first thing on our agenda for the morning was reviewing the most recent update from the President of Gryphon College. He had been good about sparing us details concerning current operations, which were largely unchanged. The college’s sudden decision to close, followed by its even more sudden reversal of that decision less than a week later, meant that the student body was considerably smaller than it was already going to be, but the only people who had lost their jobs so far were President Colerage and the entire Board of Regents.
The only professors that hadn’t returned were James Wainwright and Janet Seldon. They’d disappeared. It was a scandal, and – as Janet said – woomers were wunning wampant. Though none, for once, was stranger than the truth.
What we were really interested in were the new directions the President was planning to take the college, aided by the ad hoc and extremely unconventional group of advisors he had assembled for that purpose. He was proving himself, in this setting as in every other, to be a master at herding cats and marshaling resources. Major generals are good at that.
At least the more modern ones.
One of the “first fruits” of his new administration was the creation of a new institute, the focus of which had not yet been announced. But the college was abuzz with the news that he had managed to recruit Professor Daichi Kurokawa, currently on leave from UCLA, to head it up. Gryphon seldom managed to lure away tenured professors at top-twenty universities. What the faculty did not yet realize was that they had landed one of the foremost experts in the world on the first alien civilization to visit earth.
Kurokawa was in Sharm el-Sheik at present, though that was not widely known. Janet and I knew that he was there, unofficially, as an advisor to the President, who was leading the U.S. delegation at the Climate Conference. Kurokawa’s presence – and the reason for it – would be made clear later in the day, when President Taryn gave his speech to the delegates. Amazingly, news of the alien’s visit had not leaked, and today was the big reveal.
The President’s decision to lead the U.S. delegation personally had thrown the international order into disarray and scrambled the schedules of innumerable heads of state. But his team had promised a substantive discussion of technology transfer, and that had been a real draw. We were eagerly awaiting his speech.
But in the words of one of those poets Janet had me read, “the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley.” Sometimes in the strangest possible way. The doorbell rang, and, after our security cameras revealed nothing more sinister than a middle-age guy with a bored expression and a pot-belly, I opened the door to the cold November air. Maybe we should have gone to Bolivia instead. “Can I help you?”
He looked a bit taken aback.
I’d gotten used to my appearance having that effect on unprepared men, though I did not take as much overt delight in it as Janet did.
But he set his shoulders and said, “I expect you can, young lady.” As Janet joined me at the door, he added, “And your sister, too.”
I looked at him expectantly. “Yes? And?”
“Miss, you’re supposed to be in school.”
Absurd! “What’s it to you?” I challenged.
“What’s it to me? Well, it’s my job. I’m the truancy officer. Come on now, you both need to come with me.”
Janet and I looked at each other and began to laugh, and once we started we couldn’t stop. We laughed until we howled, tears were streaming down both of our faces, our makeup was a disaster and the truancy officer was looking acutely uncomfortable.
“Holy hand grenade of Antioch!” Janet gasped. “How did we not see that coming?”
The End.
* * * * *
Author’s Note: Joy Be With You All
If everyone will indulge – and Erin forgive – me, I’d like to take just a moment to break the Third Rule.
This is about you. It’s all about you.
Starting a serial is like volunteering to pilot a ship without knowing how big it is, how long the voyage will be or how many stops you’ll take, while having only the vaguest notion of the final destination. The only thing that prevents disaster, week after week, episode after episode, is the people who are crazy enough to get on the boat with you.
To everyone who read the story, thank you. And an extra thank-you if you left a kudo or two along the way. Unless you’ve posted a story, you can’t know how much that means.
This is the third story I’ve posted in serial form and it was by far the hardest to write. But the comments I received for every installment kept me powering through, when my brain was fried and my so-called muse was swirling her hips at some hotter chicks in a writer’s bar somewhere in Orion’s Shadow. (Aside: muses are hussies. My advice: make ‘em welcome when they stop by, but don’t wait for ’em).
I read every comment, I thought about them, and I took joy, energy, and sometimes direction from them. You made me think, and think again, and come up with answers to problems that hadn’t even occurred to me, and better answers to ones that had.
So let me name names. A special thank you to Catherd, Kimmie and Guest Reader (the amazing trio who always kept the discussions lively), to that courtly, sweet and thoughtful gentleman Robert Louis, to Dee Sylvan (truly the kindest, most affirming commenter on the site, and a genuine, warm, and wonderful woman), BelfastCity (whose relevant knowledge base left me trembling), Rachel Moore (about whom more later), Dot (“DorothyColleen,” the queen of huggles), Joanne (“Joannebarbarella,” a font of wit and wisdom), Jill (“Angela Rasch;” see infra paragraph 7), Karen J (who helped keep the story from going too far down the rabbit-hole of silliness), Barb (“BarbieLee,” that crazy cowgirl), Bru-of-the-razor-wit, AlisonP (who welcomed me to BCTS and always reads my scribblings), Julia Miller, Dreamweaver, Erin Halfelven, Dave (the wonderfully empathetic “Outsider”), Dallas (“D. Eden”), Maxkm70 (I wish I could have given you more Italian humor!), Terrynaut-of-the-eight-parakeets, Syldrak, Patricia Marie Allen, Eric, D_2008, Ricky, Withheld, Ellipsis, Diana (“Geekydee”), Polly (“Intrigue75”), Sarah Selveg, Stacy, Byteback (I did finally allude to your joke!), Cbee, Court, Emily 63, Erisian, Gwen Brown, Hypatia Littlewings, Iolanthe Portmanteau, Jeri Elaine, Joreymay, Ronni (“Laika”), Lisa Danielle, Leona MacMurchie, Marina (“Md”), Meadow Greene, Mondial88, Oz1eye, SamStarlight, Sara_J, ShadowCat: 12, Siteseer, Speaker, Tmf and Winter Cark. This story would not have been written – or at least, it might not have been finished, without your input and encouragement.
Beyond the comments, which everyone has seen and appreciated, Catherd gave me frequent proofreading catches (and humorous asides) on the QT and Jill Rasch gave me a thorough edit of the first several chapters, providing me with a template for writing more effective dialogue (where I’ve fallen short, it’s on me). Jill also helped me with some key cultural references and frequently boosted this story in blog comments. Every time she did, readership spiked. Jill, you are the E.F. Hutton of BC/TS.
A very special thanks to Rachel Moore, who’s had to “listen” to me freaking out more Tuesdays than not, when the weekly installment resisted my increasingly panicked efforts to come together. She beta tested some difficult chapters, encouraged me to have faith in my writing when faith was warranted, and gently talked me out of some of my crazier ideas. Rachel is a brilliant writer who knows how to keep it real. She’s an even better friend. Rachel, as Troi Harris would say (quoting you), “you da bomb, girl!
And a final note of appreciation to Erin/Joyce for creating and sustaining this incredible space for writers and readers of trans stories. You are an inspiration to me. As a writer, because I aspire to your light and deft touch with characters, dialogue and humor, and as a person, because of your dedication to this amazing community. One of the characters I sketched in this story is an homage of sorts. I left you plenty of clues. ;-)
Dee likened our comments group to the Cheers bar, so let me leave you with this.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be with you all.
Emma Anne Tate
3rd March, 2023
For information about my other stories, please check out my author's page.