The Fresco (30 page)

“My son's been abducted,” she said. “Also a girl that was mistaken for my daughter!”

No sign that he'd heard her. Lord, Lord. Now what? She stepped back into the bedroom and the phone rang. Chad, saying he'd just learned about what happened in California.

“Chad, for heaven's sake, I know! Angelica just told me.”

“This girl they took? Do you know who that was?”

“They thought it was Angelica!”

“You know why?”

“They want them for bait,” she cried. “To lure me out where they can get at me.” She pressed her forehead with her free hand, trying to keep it from exploding. “The predators wouldn't have targeted the children on their own, so someone put them up to it. Probably Morse because he wants to talk to the intermediary.”

“That's what his press release says,” growled Chad.

She cried, “Well, dammit, better in public than in some cellar somewhere. Morse wants to get at me, so why don't we let him! Except for my longing for anonymity, I've got no reason to hide!”

“Volunteering to testify could be a good play,” said Chad, thoughtfully. “I'll see what the powers that be have to say about that.”

“Listen,” Benita said, struggling to remain calm. “Morse might be doing this because he's expecting the president to duck or dodge on the subject of my whereabouts. Then Morse himself could haul me in, hoping I'll say something really damaging. Like…I was put up to this whole thing by the Chinese. Or the pres and I have been having this affair ever since I came to Washington. Or something equally ridiculous. That's what he really wants, to make political hay out of the situation…”

“That's scary.”

“It's not the worst. If he's using the predators, maybe he can even be sure that I'll say what he wants me to. Either they can make me do it, or they can hold the kids' lives as hostages until I do it.”

“But you'd be willing to appear in order to subvert that.”

“Right. I'll agree right now to appear before the committee Monday. Let the president announce that fact! He should announce it tonight or tomorrow, so it can get onto the news as soon as possible!”

“What about your son?”

“Somebody should get word to McVane, privately, that I expect my family to be released. Or that he'll be held responsible for the two of them, or something!”

“But the girl isn't your family.”

“She's somebody's family,” Benita snapped. “Angelica would be in their clutches right now if they hadn't made a mistake. I asked her to ask the FBI man who's guarding her to take her to a hotel for tonight and let you know where she is.”

“I'll alert the powers that be,” said Chad. “Including the president.”

Benita called Simon at home to tell him a family emergency had come up, and she would have to take Monday off. Since she'd worked overtime on several evenings, she actually had the time coming.

He sighed. “Someday you'll tell me what's going on, won't you, Benita?”

“Someday, Simon. If I ever figure it out.”

FRIDAY

The same evening, Senator Morse came home to find a note from Lupé saying that her mother had broken her wrist and that Lupé was driving to Baltimore to spend a day or two with Mama to reassure herself that Mama was all right. All in all, it suited the senator to spend a quiet evening at home. The last few days had been hectic. Predators picking off American citizens was not a precedent he wanted to set, but in this case the end justified the means. Once he got his hands on the intermediary, nobody would press him too much as to how he'd done it, and he had no doubt he could get something out of her—whether or not it led them to the envoys—that would be useful in damaging the administration!

He badly wanted a progress report, but there was no way to reach the predators until they succeeded, in which event, reaching them wouldn't be neccessary. Dink had assured him it wouldn't take them long. Ridiculous, all this running about, unable to find a woman who should stick out like a sore thumb! It suggested ineptitude among people he had always valued for being good at their jobs!

Meantime, the select committee was still unable to talk to
or communicate with or get at the envoys themselves, and the armies of ET hunters that were scouring the world for possible targets had as yet reported killing only a California condor, several wolverines and bear cubs, about fifty dogs, and a number of Ginko trees. The boosting of a surveillance satellite into a one-time moon loop, a little maneuver that cost too many millions, had allowed NASA to verify that predator ships were definitely on the back side of the moon. Morse had been cutting NASA's budget relentlessly as long as he'd been in the Senate, so there was no way to get at the moon any time soon. It was like being in a wartime situation. You couldn't attack the administration without seeming disloyal to the country, no matter how elusive or dangerous the president was. Maybe the thing to do was beef up NASA, fast, and see what the Russians had left over from their space program that might be useful. Though, come to think of it, the space station boosters had more or less picked over that trash heap.

Oh, hell, he told himself, pouring a scotch, let it go. Forget it for tonight. Raid the refrigerator, have a long hot shower, go to bed.

The food and the shower he managed. While luxuriating under the hot spray, however, he felt a sting on his shoulder, as though a wasp or bee was in the shower with him. Even as he slapped at the shoulder he felt overwhelmingly dizzy. The tile walls of the shower stall spun around him; he felt himself slipping, though he didn't feel himself landing on the floor. Everything went gray and silent.

He was aware that time was passing, that things seemed to have duration. He came halfway to consciousness, finding himself on an examining table, just like…well, like all that stupid
X-Files
stuff, and there was this…ET thing, not a little gray man, not an envoy, not one of those predators they had shown on that broadcast of theirs, something else. Like a huge wasp, only with a high cranium and a soft voice. This large creature, assisted by two smaller creatures, was very intent on doing something to him, though he felt no particular pain or apprehension. They were holding him and shifting him, quite gently, and then there was a sudden, hor
rible pain, terrible and piercing as the large creature stuck its…something or other, surely not what it looked like, no, that couldn't be, he meant no, not that, he meant stuck its daggerlike thing into him, right into his middle, and squirted something through it, something quite large because the daggerlike thing bulged to let it through, and then the pain again, only worse, much worse, he couldn't bear, couldn't stand…

And then only peace and euphoria. Nice. Nice restful feeling, and he woke up momentarily. He was at home, in bed, quite naked.

Senator Byron Morse never slept naked. He staggered out of bed and found his pajamas hanging where he'd left them this morning, on the back of the bathroom door. It was while he was buttoning the pajama top before the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door that he noticed a strange discoloration on his stomach. Just to the right of the belly button and a little higher. A real doozy of a bruise, with a bloody spot in the middle. He touched it, and something bit him, like being hit with a cattle prod. A second attempt had the same result. He should have been worried about it, but he still felt very happy and contented. Euphoric. That was the word. He hummed it to himself.

An isolated section of his mind repeated the word. Euphoric? From what? Why was he thinking about euphoria? He should be worried about this damned bloody spot. He was damned well worried about this bloody spot, but he was too tired to do anything about it tonight. He'd get a few hours sleep, first. This morning, first thing, he'd see his doctor.

Dear Benita, Vess and I are so deeply sorry about the predators. Though they will not kill nearly as many of your people as you do on your own, we realize that the simultaneous death of small groups is perceived to be more tragic than a very large mortality stretched over time and space. A plane crash that kills one hundred in one place seems a greater tragedy than the many times that number killed one or two at a time, here and there, by gunshot or car crash or tobacco addiction. When working with intelligent beings, one must work with perceptions as much as with reality, and accordingly, we know the predation must be stopped!

We have set our search devices to find the Xankatikitiki, as they are usually the easiest to locate. There are more of them, they have the strongest smell, and they tend toward noisy braggadocio, particularly the young ones. Once we find them, we will find the others. If we do not find them within a short time, we will find a human who has met with them, though we will need to wipe the memory of it later. If the predators have conspired with humans, then those humans must have a way to get in touch with them! Unfortunately, conspirators do not emit the same kinds of strong,
focused signals that serial killers or terrorists do. Conspirators tend to have torturous mentalities which are often unclear even to themselves.

Meantime, Vess and I are continuing with the programs set out before our brief departure. We are extending the ugliness plague to Iran and Arabia and to parts of India where both Muslims and the wealthier Hindus seem to enjoy locking women up. This is such a unique societal trait that Vess and I brought it to the attention of the Chapter back on Pistach-home. We have been sending them reports all along, of course, and they soon saw the similarity between this human trait and the violent capture of females found among other Earthian mammals. Baboons and various kinds of deer kidnap females, for example, as do teams of dolphins, usually violently and sometimes lethally.

Our Chapter asked us why some human societies consider female capture and abuse to be barbaric while others consider it to be “traditional” or “cultural” or even “religious.” Why should certain societies have very little breeding madness while others have it continuously? Are some but not all human societies genetically incapable of self-control?

This dichotomy among various subgroups of a single race is hard for us to explain, dear Benita. We've looked into the matter, and there is no clear-cut genetic difference between populations with breeding madness and those without. As we know from experience, however, even a rare genetic predisposition can survive culturally if the predisposition is found among the leaders of the society. Though a leader may be genetically driven to a certain behavior rather than choosing it, if that leader is charismatic, others will elect to copy the behavior. Thus is breeding madness spread among certain populations, first by emulation, in time acquiring a cultural or even religious cachet.

If there is a genetic predisposition to breeding madness, it may have arisen among groups who lived around your Mediterranean Sea. We hear much of the “Latin Temperament,” for example, which enjoys ritualized sacrifice of or battles among male animals such as bulls and cocks. They also have dances portraying contests of sexual dominance. I
apologize, dearest Benita, if I seem to be belaboring this point! Even though we are sure these things must change, first it is necessary that we understand what is going on. It is far more important to establish a civil and orderly society than it is to pander to abusive cultural and religious artifacts. This is why we are continuing the ugliness campaign. Once the societies have unlearned their present attitudes, women may become lovely again, as you are, dear Benita. In the meantime, the women will at least have the freedom to come and go as they will, to work and study and learn.

Our Inkleozese monitors were not here long before they pointed out that a nation dedicated to protecting human rights should not have warm diplomatic relations with nations that have institutionalized breeding madness, not even when those nations have a lot of petroleum. We had postponed consideration of this issue formerly, but since all the Inkleozese monitors are receptors, that is, females, we are unable to delay consideration any longer. The Inkleozese react very strongly to insults to their own or similar sexes, and they feel the imprisonment of women is no less heinous than confining political prisoners for the sake of “security.”

If widening the area afflicted by the ugly-plague badly upsets your country's acquisition of sufficient fuel, we will provide your nation with power technology that needs no petroleum. An equitable society capable of Neighborliness cannot be built on competition for scarce resources. Think what such cutthroat competition would mean in interstellar society?

The question of resources brings me to a delicate point. Because our need was immediate, we brought back with us the only Inkleozese monitors who were available at the time. Virtually all of them are in that state of parturition that will soon require a host animal. There are no quodm, no geplis, no nadervaks on Earth. The most suitable creatures will be male persons, as their hormones are more easily adjustable to the needs of the growing Inkliti.

Under usual circumstances, the Inkleozese would refuse to leave their planet at such a time. Only our elucidation of the pro-life feelings of many men in positions of power con
vinced them they could find hosts on Earth without offending the free will of its inhabitants. Obviously, the hosts will have to be persons who espouse the pure pro-life position which does not allow reproductive choice even in the case of rape. Not that these gentlemen would consider it rape, but we all know what the media do with any events related to sexuality.

While the Inkleozese might be offended by the anti-woman bigotry underlying much pro-life dogma, we have not seen fit to discuss with them the psychological minutia of the situation. They would be outraged, or worse, if a host animal refused the implantation of an Inklit egg, but since implantation is always done with the host in a euphoric state, we know the gentlemen will not refuse. We have, therefore, selected hosts for the Inkleozese on the basis of their publicly stated receptivity to preborn life.

Among those chosen are several of your legislators who have repeatedly asserted an unequivocal antichoice position. We have also added to the list a number of TV and radio preachers and commentators who have been rigorously pro-life. Once the immediate need is taken care of, we will explain the matter as seems necessary. Everyone will be told that the hosts are pregnant with babies of an intelligent life form which it would be a grave ethical error to remove. Though the impregnation has or will be done without the hosts' individual permission, in a legal sense we may infer their permission from the stand which they have taken upon the issue of rape. Each man on our list has gone on record as refusing to allow choice to women who have been raped, pointing out that the infant is innocent and must therefore take precedence. The Inkleozese could not ask for a better statement of their own belief.

In any case, the implantations will be only a temporary inconvenience for the hosts. They will most likely survive the pregnancy and emergence experience without lasting harm, just as most of your women do. The hosts will have only a few months of discomfort and inconvenience, though of course their careers must be set aside for a time. Inasmuch as they have frequently decried the shallowness of women
who attempted to avoid pregnancy for mere career convenience, however, we are assured of their understanding.

Aha. Vess calls. The machines are signaling! We have something on the location of the Xankatikitiki. When next we encounter one another, dear Benita, I hope you will be gratified to know we have reached the predators and succeeded in removing them from your world.