Moonstruck. Part 2

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

"Kyle?"

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

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

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

Ah.

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

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

a test tube, which he quickly stoppered.

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

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

didn't appear in their breath, either.

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

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

CHAPTER 3.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm glad you joined me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He offered an elbow. "Shall we mingle?"

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

away from the National Gallery of Art, in front of which the Fellows.h.i.+p Station was to be placed, were they able to make slow progress." . . . Growing up as a . . . " " . . . Incalculable opportunity . . . " " . . . Soulless monsters . . . " " . . . Food around here?" "Devils . . . " " . . . To the stars?" Bits of conversation rose and fell randomly from the

milling, murmuring crowd.

Devils and monsters? "Wait a sec." Kyle pivoted slowly, listening in vain for more of one conversation.

"Did you hear someone mention monsters?" She shook her head.

He dug the computer out of his pocket. A few finger taps retrieved the sampling of today's headlines that had been radio-downlinked from the White House's intranet. He grunted as the tabloid headlines rolled into view. He'd come here to learn, and he had: however inventive these nutty headlines were, there really were people who believed them. A double tap on the AmericaNet entry made him blink in surprise: 547 postings just yesterday to the Modern Revelations news group. A quick scribble with the stylus across the touch screen, "f'thk OR alien OR galactic" matched only 403 of these entries; "monster OR creature OR devil OR demon OR satan" yielded 516 entries. Wondering if he'd missed any synonyms, Kyle wrote himself a softcopy note to check out this news group.

A roar arose from across the Mall. The crowd pivoted toward the National Gallery, aligning itself to the north like so many iron filings. People all around them retrieved their radios, portable TVs, and pocket comps. As one, they turned the volume settings to max.

Once more, the aliens had arrived.

The Hovercraft coasted gracefully to a halt at the presidential reviewing stand. A ramp slid from the deck area. A F'thk (Kyle couldn't decide from the small screen if it was one that he'd met) guided the cylindrical Fellows.h.i.+p Station down the slope. No longer partially obscured by the side of the

Hovercraft, the cylinder could now be seen to have a flared base, a skirt for containing its own air cus.h.i.+on, perhaps. To yet one more cheer, the cylinder settled to rest on the gra.s.sy surface of the Mall.

As the President completed his words of welcome and introduction, Darlene poked Kyle with a sharp

finger. "Coming to Was.h.i.+ngton first. Odd, don't you think?"

His home VCR was taping everything anyway. "So? They'll see other capitals, meet other heads of state at other ceremonies, starting with Chairman Chang tomorrow in Beijing."

"They've picked favorites, or seemed to, by coming to Was.h.i.+ngton, first. Why not New York and the

UN?".

"Maybe they didn't know about it."

"Yeah, right. They speak perfect English-and French, Spanish, German, and Russian. People I respect say their Mandarin, j.a.panese, and Hindi are just as good. They made themselves folk heroes by interrupting only commercials. You really think they never heard of the United Nations?"

"You don't buy that?"

"Hardly."

"Does everyone at Foggy Bottom feel this way?"

Her look of disgust was eloquent.

So . . . someone who didn't take the aliens at face value. Someone whose thinking was, at the same time,

orthogonal to his own. Kyle made a snap decision. "Congratulations."

"For what?"

For being selected a member of the Presidential Commission on Galactic Studies. Trying to look

enigmatic, he turned back to his computer screen, on which Amba.s.sador H'ffl had just appeared. "Ask me tomorrow." * * * After speaking of fellows.h.i.+p and galactic unity for fifteen minutes, Amba.s.sador H'ffl extended an arm toward the just-dedicated Fellows.h.i.+p Station. In one smooth motion, a talon sliced through the ribbon and depressed the single control b.u.t.ton. The crowd didn't go silent, that was too much to expect from what the media now estimated at 720,000 people, but there was a decided abatement of the din. An inset door in the station slid aside. H'ffl removed something that sparkled in the sunlight and handed it to President Robeson. "On behalf of the Commonwealth, I offer you this...o...b.. symbol of galactic unity. May the peoples of Earth soon qualify for members.h.i.+p." Renewed shouting drowned out much of the President's response. As Kyle and Darlene watched, H'ffl and his a.s.sociates presented one orb after another to the a.s.sembled dignitaries. A phalanx of Secret Service agents, Park Service police, and DC cops held back the crowd while the VIPs filed back to their limos. Honking as it went, the motorcade receded. Darlene and Kyle were among the lucky ones: they reached the Fellows.h.i.+p Station and received their orbs in only a bit over five hours. Each was an ever-changing crystalline sphere, resting in a metallic bowl atop a ceramic pedestal. It seemed a nice enough souvenir, if hardly worth the hoopla.

* * * The next morning, an exhausted Kyle found an orb waiting on his desk. The note left beneath the galactic memento read: When I told H'ffl about your new duties, he insisted that you get one of these. Britt.

CHAPTER 4.

Economic Impact of Galactic Technology Uncertain -The Wall Street Journal Thousands Pray for Deliverance from s.p.a.ce Devils -yesterday's most popular dialogue on the Modern Revelations News Group, AmericaNet Gustafson Commission Opens Hearings Today -New York Times Aides scurried around the enormous conference table, double-checking the placement of name tags, distributing gla.s.ses and pitchers of ice water, straightening network taps and power cords for laptop PCs, and setting out pencils and pads of paper. The secretaries were silent; the considerable noise within the room all came from the milling crowd on the opposite side of the closed double doors. From, that was, the press and the commission members . . .

The chairman of the Presidential Commission on Galactic Studies scowled at the totally anachronistic pads of paper, and at the inclusion of so many committee members apt to use them. He'd turned out to have less authority than expected-far less, for example, than the President's chief of staff. Kyle could name as many staffers as he wished; the commissioners were to be chosen more for their political correctness ("A diversity of viewpoints," Britt had gently rephrased Kyle's complaint) than for any insight they were likely to have.

The list of private-sector members on which he and Britt had finally converged was simultaneously top-heavy with CEOs from New New Economy companies and light on technologists: more campaign contributors than researchers. Kyle could at least hope that these executives would tap their organizations' expertise, and he'd had some success in holding out for execs whose firms did relevant R&D. As to the Wall Street and Hollywood types, he could only hope that the deliberations would put them to sleep. Would it be unseemly to ask his token clergyperson to pray for that?

The next largest group of members was drawn from midtier executives of key federal agencies and departments: EPA, Energy, NASA, Homeland Security, DoD, Commerce-and State. He smiled, recalling a rare victory: Darlene Lyons was one of "his" diplomats.