Chapter 16

He turned to see Claude Appert, bundled in a long gray topcoat against the morning chill, waving to him from the gateway of one of the courtyards.

Stoner loped over to him and grabbed Appert's outstretched hand. "Claude, it's good to see you again."

"Keith . . . Keith ..." The Frenchman groped for words, then gave it up and clasped Stoner around the shoulders.

They had been classmates. Now Claude Appert was nearly sixty years old. He had turned into the kind of Parisian that American filmgoers expect to see: slim, elegant, silvery hair, pencil-thin mustache, handsome face with expressive brown eyes. Beneath the open topcoat Stoner saw he was wearing a natty beige suit with an open-necked shirt and a neatly knotted silk foulard of paisley browns and tans. But that handsome face was sagging now; gravity was pulling at it, spiderwebbing it with wrinkles. The eyes had lost the luster Stoner remembered from years earlier. His old classmate was visibly crumbling with age.

Appert held Stoner at arm's length and studied his face for several moments. "You haven't changed a bit. You are exactly the same as the last time we saw you."

Stoner cast back in his memory. "At the astrophysical congress in Vienna."

"Yes. You were working on the telescope in orbit then."

"Big Eye." Stoner nodded. "That was just before we found the alien spacecraft."

"Nearly twenty years ago."

"I've spent eighteen of those years sleeping."

Appert smiled. "No wonder you look so refreshed!"

He clapped Stoner on the back, and they walked side by side toward the entrance to his apartment building.

"It's good of you to take me in like this," Stoner said. "Especially on such short notice, and this early in the morning."

The Parisian shrugged. "I am an early riser always. But Nicole is not. Yet even she is up and around, preparing a good breakfast in your honor."

" I am overwhel med."

The two men laughed as they strode through the apartment building's tiny lobby and squeezed into the small, open cage of the elevator. The Apperts' home was on the top floor, a large set of spacious, high-ceilinged rooms filled with antique furniture and family heirlooms. Claude Appert, a student at the Sorbonne studying astrophysics on a merit scholarship, had fallen madly in love with a wisp of a girl who needed his tutoring in science to pass her first year's exams. It was nearly a year before he discovered that she was the only child of the count de Rochemont. Claude had met his prospective in-laws in this same apartment, which had been the family's Paris home since the building had been erected, at the turn of the last century.

Nicole de Rochemont Appert was small and slight, dark of hair and eye, pale in complexion, and possessed of the utter self-assurance that comes from being the only child of wealthy parents. She greeted Stoner at the foyer of their apartment with a passionate embrace and warm kisses on both cheeks. Stoner kissed her back, gladly, with all the happiness of greeting a cherished friend. Nicole wore a burgundy sweater and light gray woolen skirt. Her short hair was perfectly coiffed, her makeup so well applied that it was unnoticeable. Already she held a cigarette in her right hand.

"Keith," she said in her husky voice. "Keith, you are alive. And still the most handsome scientist in the world." She bussed him again on both cheeks.

He squeezed her waist and said, "The most jealous scientist, you mean. Because you found Claude before I had the chance to find you."

She laughed, low and throaty. "Keith, you are so gallant. I am old enough now to be your mother, almost."

"Almost doesn't count."

"And you have learned to speak French," she said, pleased. "With a good accent, too."

"I didn't even notice," Appert said. "Yes, you never spoke French before. ..."

Stoner hadn't realized it himself. It seemed perfectly natural to him. Shrugging almost like a Parisian, he said, "I'm glad you approve of the accent."

"Come." Claude took his arm. "Let me show you to your room. You can wash up while breakfast is put on the table."

Stoner let Appert lead him from the foyer down the hallway that bisected the apartment. The rooms were just as he remembered them, with magnificent high ceilings and long, airy windows covered by delicate curtains of Belgian lace. There were four bedrooms in addition to the parlor, dining room, and what looked like an office. The furnishings were quietly luxurious: dark woods and tasteful fabrics. Oriental carpets. The place smelled of old wealth.

"The children have all gone off on their own?" he asked.

"Ah, yes," Appert said with a sigh. "Scattered to the four corners of the globe. All of them married, except Philip, who is managing the tourist hotel on the moon. I think he is his own best customer, you know, as far as women are concerned."

Stoner laughed. "You're a grandfather, then."

"Yes, of course. Three granddaughters--not counting anything Philip might have accomplished accidentally."

They entered the rearmost bedroom. It was smallish, but very comfortable and quiet. A massive mahogany wardrobe stood against one wall, nearly reaching the ceiling. An exquisitely delicate chiffonier was on the other side. Somehow the two pieces blended perfectly. The bed was large and stood high off the floor on heavy carved legs. A pale blue silk throw covered it.

"They will be coming here for Christmas, all of them, except Philip, who cannot get away for the holidays," Appert continued. "It will be wonderful to see them." He tapped a finger against the side of his nose. "And even more wonderful when they all leave."

Stoner grinned at him as he headed for the bathroom. "I don't have any luggage," he said. "I suppose I'll have to buy some clothes."

Appert called through the half-open door, "Look through

the armoire. Perhaps some of Denis's clothes will fit you. He grew rather tall."

Stoner rummaged through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe and found a pair of jeans that were long enough for him and a shirt that was only slightly tight across the shoulders.

"What do you think?" he asked as he examined himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe's door.

"Like a young cowboy," said Appert.

As they headed toward the dining room, Stoner asked, "Three granddaughters? Are you hoping for a grandson?"

Appert arched a silver eyebrow. "Nicole and I are, but our two married sons and our daughter have each opted for daughters. If they decide to have second children, I suppose they will have sons."

"You can choose?"

"Of course!" Appert looked mildly surprised. Then he remembered. "Ah, you have been sleeping for eighteen years."

Nicole's idea of preparing breakfast was to give the cook detailed instructions on what she desired. She was waiting for them at the dining room table, staring out the curtained window at the cloudy sky, chin in hand, cigarette dangling from a corner of her mouth.

"I don't think I've been up this early in the morning since I am a child," she said as Stoner and her husband entered the dining room.

"I'm terribly sorry," Stoner said. "I didn't stop to think. . . ."

"If it were anyone but you, Keith, I would have stayed in bed."

Stoner bowed slightly, then took one of the heavy high-backed chairs and sat between her and Claude.

"She's telling you the truth, you know," Appert said as he sat down. "Last summer she slept through a visit from the president of France."

"No!"

Nicole shrugged. "He is only a politician."

"And you got up for me?"

"Of course. You are an old and dear friend whom we thought we had lost forever. You have returned from the dead, Keith, and I want to hear all about it. Every detail."

"Okay. But do you have to smoke?"

"It bothers you?"

"Only because it's harming you," he said.

She laughed. "No, no. It is perfectly safe now. Harmless. Like eating candy."

Stoner frowned. "I understand that cancer is not only the number-one cause of death worldwide, but that its incidence is growing."

"Pooh!" said Nicole. "That may be so, but it is not from cigarettes. Not anymore. We have developed synthetic tobacco--all the pleasure of the real thing but none of the risks. No carcinogens. None at all."

"I don't believe--"

"It's quite true," Appert said. "A breakthrough from the biologists. I have even returned to my pipe."

"So you see, my dear Keith," Nicole teased, "you must give up your prejudice against smoking. It is a harmless pleasure now, like eating candy."

Stoner felt suspicious. "Candy can give you cavities," he muttered.

"Not anymore," Appert corrected. "We have had vaccines against tooth decay for more than ten years."

Nicole blew smoke languidly toward the recessed paneling of the cofferwork ceiling. Appert smiled at him like a Cheshire cat.

Finally Stoner broke into a grin. "What do you people do for vices, then?"

They laughed together. "There is still greed and avarice," Nicole said. "And gluttony, I suppose, although the biologists have also produced a reducing pill that actually works."

"Lust!" Appert said firmly. "When all else fails, there is still lust."

At that point the maid pushed through the door from the kitchen. She was a heavyset girl with a round, pinkish face and brawny arms. She bore a laden silver tray in her hands and a pained expression on her face. At Nicole's order she placed the tray on the sideboard, then served the breakfast of fresh juice, delicate, feather-light crepes, croissants, jellies, and coffee. Both Nicole and her husband added milk liberally to their cups. Stoner took his coffee black.

The maid left the room, pushing a stubborn wisp of hair away from her eyes.

"She's Spanish," Stoner said.

"You can't get good help except for the Spaniards," Nicole answered.

"Or robots," said Appert.

"I will not have one of those mechanical creatures in my home!" she snapped.

Appert raised a hand tiredly. Stoner realized that they had argued over this many times.

Nicole came to the same realization. The fire in her eyes calmed, and she smiled at their visitor. "Please," she said to Stoner, gesturing toward the food, "help yourself."

For a few minutes all three of them concerned themselves with getting breakfast onto their plates. Finally, though, Nicole asked again:

"Now, you must tell us everything."

Stoner smiled at her. Not everything, he thought. There's so much that I don't understand myself.

But he began to talk, starting with the frantic days so long ago when he had first discovered that a spacecraft from another star had entered the solar system and was heading toward Earth.

"And the alien creature inside it," Nicole asked, "he was dead?"

"Yes. For God knows how many centuries. The spacecraft was his sarcophagus. He had his body sent out drifting among the stars."

"But why?"

"An interstellar gesture of goodwill," Stoner said, absolutely certain of it. "A one-way wanderer, preserved for the aeons. If his spacecraft happened to drift into a star system that had habitable planets, the computer on board was smart enough to steer it toward those worlds."

Appert shook his head slightly. "A computer that can still function after thousands of years."

"Millions, more likely. He left his world before there were any human beings on Earth." Turning back to Nicole, he went on. "The alien was offering himself--his body, all the knowledge that he could cram into the spacecraft--as a gift from the stars. It was his way of telling whoever he stumbled across that there are other intelligent races in the universe, and they mean us no harm."

"Fantastic."

Stoner nodded. "I suppose it is fantastic, at that."

The morning lengthened into noon as Stoner told them how he had literally forced the United States and Soviet Russia into a cooperative mission to reach the alien's spacecraft. And how he had decided to remain aboard it rather than return to Earth.

"It was a crazy thing to do," he told them before they could ask. "After all the work and struggle to reach the spacecraft, things turned out so that we only had a few minutes to inspect it. There had been political problems, even sabotage. I knew that if I left the spacecraft, we would never get back to it again. It would drift out of the solar system while the politicians argued about it. So I stayed aboard. I turned off my spacesuit heater and joined the alien. . . ."He halted, realizing that he had joined the alien in a literal sense. "We both became frozen."

"But you were not dead," Nicole said.

"No. Not dead."

"You offered your body as a hostage," Appert realized. "The world could not allow you to drift away on the alien ship. Someone had to rescue you."

Stoner nodded. "And to rescue me, they had to go out and get the alien spacecraft before it drifted out of the solar system altogether."

"I see," said Nicole. "So you forced them to bring the alien ship back to Earth."

"It's in orbit a couple of hundred miles above us," Stoner said.

"And you are back among us." Nicole smiled at him.

"Yes, but . . ." The words almost froze on his tongue. "But I feel almost like an alien myself. This world has changed a lot since I left it."

Appert glanced at his wife, then turned back to Stoner. "There have been many changes, that is true. Most of them have been very good. We no longer live under the threat of nuclear annihilation."

"So I understand."

"And we have the energy of the stars now," Nicole said.

"Fusion power, you mean."

"Yes, fusion," said Appert.

Stoner saw that his old friend looked uncomfortable. "What is it, Claude? What's bothering you?"

"You won't mind if I ask a personal question?"

"Of course not."

"We are delighted to have you here, Keith. Delighted that you are alive and well. But--you call suddenly at an early hour, you arrive without luggage, without even a razor or toothbrush. You give every appearance of being a fugitive."

"We are concerned for your safety," Nicole added. "Are you in trouble? Can we help?"

Stoner laughed softly and saw the Apperts go from concern to surprise to relief, all in the flicker of an eye.

"I'm not a fugitive from justice," he told them. "I merely ran away from the people who wanted to hold on to me so that they could study me. I got tired of being a laboratory specimen."

"Ah." Appert leaned back in his chair, understanding.

"These are the same people who revived you?" Nicole asked.

"Yes. They have the feeling that they own me. I feel differently."

"I see."

"Who are these people?" Appert asked.

"A research group--part of Vanguard Industries."

"Vanguard." Appert seemed impressed.

"You know of them?"

"Perhaps the largest multinational corporation in the world," Nicole said. "Bigger even than Eurogenetics or Philips / Nestle"

Now Stoner felt impressed. "I didn't know that."

Appert gestured with one hand. "Vanguard has an annual budget that is almost as large as that of the government of France. It is a huge corporation."

"They will be looking for you very hard, I think," said Nicole.

"I suppose they will," Stoner admitted.

"You will be safe here, though," Nicole assured him. Her husband nodded.

"But I can't stay for long," Stoner blurted.

"Why not?"

The idea formed in his mind as he spoke the words, as if the information were being transmitted to him from some distant point of origin.

"I've got to see one of the men who worked with me, eighteen years ago. A Russian. His name is Kirill Markov."