TWELVE
To his surprise, Skip found Andrew Almeida a likeable man, generally relaxed and easy-going, talkative but a good listener, holder of a master's degree in history, sensitive appreciator of the arts, head of a charming family whose hospitality was large and unfeigned on week-ends in their mountain cabin.
That was about the sole leisure Skip got. For the rest, he had a room on base, and when he wasn't conferring he was being trained. He must learn the results of three years of Sigman studies, get them into his bones, for if his scheme worked there was no predicting what the creature would do and his reaction in turn ought not to be blind. Well, that was whoopee by him. He didn't even mind the celibacy, much.
When he was taken into Earth orbit to learn the rudiments of free-fall co-ordination—when he saw, no simulacrum between walls, the Mother Herself before his eyes, shining among the stars—it was the lordliest hour of his life thus far.
Meanwhile the FBI must be trying to check out his past. He leered and wished them joy. Yvonne's influence had got him a temporary clearance which sufficed.
After a month, Almeida's final briefing came as a blow.
He sat behind the desk in his office, Skip and Yvonne in chairs facing him. A window stood open to cool air, to rumble and bustle, to buildings across the way and beyond them a glimpse of the steeplelike rocket which tomorrow dawn would lift on flame and pierce blue heaven.
Almeida stuffed his pipe. 'I wish we could have spent more time preparing for this mission,' he said.
Yvonne drew on a cigarette. Though she looked tense and jittery, Skip admired the aquiline profile, tilted eyes, lustrous hair, figure damn good, really, beneath her severe business dress, in a lean long-legged fashion… 'We're about as ready as we can be,' she said. 'If we dawdle, the Sigman may leave on a new junket, or for home.'
'Right,' the colonel agreed. 'Or somebody may independently come on Skip's notion.'
Yvonne straightened in her chair. 'Andy,' she said, 'I don't like the way we've been hugging the concept to us. Among other reasons, I want to discuss it with my foreign associates, Duclos in particular. He's bound to have valuable thoughts, being a connoisseur in private life. I obeyed you hitherto because we were busy explaining and laying detailed plans. But I don't want to keep silence any longer.'
Skip tugged an earlobe. 'Uh, I figured the secrecy wasn't too bad a notion, Yvonne,' he ventured. 'After what happened to you and— Shouldn't we have stopped to think before bulling ahead on something this important? If we were wrong, we've only stalled progress a month. Because how can we hide our doings after we've gone aboard?'
'That,' said Almeida, 'is what I aim to discuss today.'
His lighter popped into flame, ah unexpectedly loud noise. Yvonne started.! Skip touched a hand to the fang he had not seen fit to mention here either.
Almeida developed a good head of steam before he leaned elbows on desk and said with unwonted gravity: 'We've informed the appropriate agencies abroad that we're sending a boat there tomorrow.
They keep radar surveillance the same as us. But we've claimed it's a routine check on the outer fringes of the Sigman's forcefield, to see if there've been any changes. There never have been, you know, but it's sensible to reinvestigate periodically; and the manoeuvres are good practice for astronauts. Nobody else cared to come along, as we expected.
'You will orbit close and transmit your programme on the original Sigman waveband, holding power too low for detection more than a few kilometres off. That way, if you get a response, the fact can be kept confidential.'
'Huh?' Skip exclaimed. 'Now wait just one mucking minute.'
Almeida lifted a hand. 'You needn't tell me. A dirty trick, a violation of solemn covenants. But suppose the Sigman's response is a complete set of plans for its ship. Not fantastic. We're obviously a race interested in technology. Or something less foreseeable may happen.' The hand became a fist and smote the desk-top. 'We don't know. And we don't have solid, enforceable international agreements concerning these things. You needn't blame Chinese intransigence or American paranoia or whatever your pet whipping boy is. Simply consider the problem in preparing for events that can't really be imagined, let alone predicted. And the more players there are in a game, the less stable the game becomes.'
He sighed. 'Maybe, if you establish meaningful communication, you should ask the Sigman to go away till the human race has grown up,' he said. 'Or maybe, and I hope this is most likely, the knowledge will prove safe enough, introduced gradually enough, that we can return to wide-open operations. For the present, however, we fight a delaying action.'
Yvonne's lips trembled. She dabbed at her eyes.
'What if the Sigman invites us to tea?' Skip asked. 'We've been kind of assuming it'll do so, if our scheme works. Manned satellites are always watching for that rainbow come-on.'
'Maybe you can somehow make it omit the signal,' Almeida suggested. 'Or, having boarded, maybe you can persuade it to close the forcefield again. In such a case, we'll fob off indignant protests by claiming that evidently a misunderstanding occurred___Responsibility doesn't rest entirely on your shoulders.
Your pilot and co-pilot were carefully picked. Major Thewlis has had combat experience—the Rock incident, for example. Captain Kurland is with Air Force intelligence. Let me make plain the ground rules under which you'll operate.'
Skip was lost in contemplation of the spacecraft. That gladsome dance of mass and shape, where sun and shadow lilted, was like Earth afloat in the universe, like music, like love and adventure and creating—you could only experience it by experiencing it. The words of the finest writers, the pictures of the finest holographic photographers, had never suggested what sacredness was here.
This spearhead, that curve, yonder spiral, yes, I see how they flow together to make oneness and rise back renewed.
Kurland tapped him on the shoulder. 'We're in orbit, Mr Wayburn.'
Jarred from his trance, Skip bounced against his harness. The cabin crowded him with instruments, the air smelled stale, a pump was whickering, weightlessness was pleasant but he knew how it would hamper his unskilled muscles, the window through which he had gazed was small and smeared. 'Oh. Oh, yeah,'
he mumbled stupidly.
'Can you get busy right away?' Thewlis asked.
'Yes, of course.' Yvonne began unfastening.
'Remember,' Kurland told Skip, 'from time to time we'll have to snort, correcting for drift, if we want to maintain our relative position. Won't be more than a tenth of a gee at the outside, and we'll warn you in advance.'
Skip's nod was impatient. Returned to full awareness, he was ablaze with his mission. If it was victorious, what glories might he not see! Releasing himself, he bobbed across the cabin towards the visiphone transmitter, where he clipped on a tether and started unpacking the objects brought along.
Yvonne helped. Her voice was troubled: 1 could almost wish we draw blank.' She tossed her head. 'No, I don't 1'
'If we do,' Skip said needlessly, 'we'll keep trying.'
'How do you know the Sigman receiver is on?' Kur-land asked behind him.
'We don't,' Thewlis said. 'But wouldn't you leave yours on, recording, and check the tapes at intervals?'
'My guess is, a monitoring gadget is set to holler when something comes in that looks like pay dirt,' Skip said. 'Oops! Damn!" A wad of cotton, padding for a bowl, escaped him.
Thewlis fielded it. 'I still don't understand what basis you picked your specimens on,' he remarked.
'Guesswork, mostly,' Skip confessed. 'We needed a wide variety. However, since this boat can't carry a British Museumful, we made low bulkiness one criterion. And we chose the majority of exhibits from what we thought was likeliest to appeal. I can't explain our method. We'd try to abstract Sigman conventions from what humans have seen of the ship, and reason from there. Speaking honest, though: it was a lot more hunch and intuition than logic'
'Mostly Skip's,' Yvonne added. 'That's how I got him cleared. Chequered background or no, I said, who else had a better chance of succeeding?'
An hour later, the duplicated masterpieces racked in order, the script of the show clipboarded before them, he and she looked at each other and clasped hands. He saw how the pulse fluttered in her throat.
His own mouth was dry. Quick, what can I say at this historic moment? The Eagle has laid an egg
— No, hell, let's just slog ahead. He activated the visual scanner. Yvonne began to speak on the synthesizer.
'Humans .. . approach . . . Sigman. Humans… approach … Sigman. Human-Sigman.
Human-Sigman.' Presently she nodded to Skip. The screen before them remained blank, but he lifted the first of his choices, a Mondrian pattern. He didn't think the alien would find its subtle simplicity more than mildly interesting, but it could lead
the way to photographs of a Japanese torii gate, Chinese calligraphy—
—Diirer, Michelangelo, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Corot, Mptonobu, Lung-Mien, Persian miniatures and Lascaux bison whose creators were forgotten hut never, never the work—
— the curve of a Hindu cup or a Grecian vase, the virility of a Polynesian war club or an African mask, the sinister grace of an Aztec skull carved in crystal, the serene charm of a Russian icon carved in wood—
—pictures of larger sculptures, Nefertiti's head, Aphrodite and Nike, but here chiefly the more recent masters, Rodin, Brancusi, Milles, Nielsen—of parks and gardens— of the noblest and the most
.charming houses men had raised, temples, palaces, cottages, bowers, castles, tombs—
For this had been the artist's insight: that the traveller had made its lonely pilgrimage because it too was an artist, in search of nothing less than beauty.
"Hey!' shouted Thewlis. 'It's litl Like a goddamn Christmas tree I'
Skip twisted wildly about. From his post he could glimpse an edge of the Sigman vessel, kilometres distant. No longer did the space between look empty. It flamed with colours, all colours, from the deep pure fluorescences to the softest tints a sunrise or a flower might blend, whirling and flickering and twining, till it was as if the watcher became part of their ecstasy and went beyond this whole cosmos.
Kurland's voice drew him back: ' Jee-zus, but you got through. The invitation's never been half that bright or lively before, am I right?'
'You are,' said Thewlis. Hushed: They haven't made words for this.'
'Maybe the Sigmans have,' Kurland said out of the same wonder.
Yvonne broke into tears.
Thewlis shook Mmself and turned from the spectacle. 'Well, our hope of maintaining complete secrecy always was faint,' he said tonelessly. 'The big thing is, we've made contact—you two have—and now we go by Plan Charlie.' He unbuckled. 'I'll help you load your stuff. We can stick those things right in the rack and tow them over, correct?'
Til break out the spacesuits and gear,' Kurland stated.
The auroral marvel outside was lost in a scramble of preparation.
'Okay,' Thewlis said before closing his face-plate. 'Let's review procedure a final time. We'll stand by as usual. Once aboard, you do what seems best. If you possibly can, get the Sigman to shut the entryway behind you. Then spend the rest of your time there convincing it to communicate only with Americans. I know what a tall order that is, especially when you've got perhaps thirty hours before the foreign ships start arriving.'
'Maybe less,' Kurland said. 'We know they've kept stand-bys on about one-day countdowns since you brought the big news, Dr Canter. But somebody could have a surprise in reserve.'
Yvonne winced. 'I'll be so embarrassed, so ashamed, if—'
Kurland clapped her on the armoured shoulder. The force drove her a ways from him. 'Have you forgotten your cover story?' he asked. 'Skip's idea seemed too wild to broach officially, but as long as he, a recruit, needed training, we figured on our low level, not bothering to notify Washington, we might as well give it a whirl. You came along for the ride and on the off chance. Nobody was more flabbergasted than us when it paid off.'
Yvonne's face was lost and unhappy in her helmet. 'I'm not a good liar,' she said. 'I hate lying.'
'I'm an expert,' Skip assured her, 'and outside of my friends, I enjoying practising the trade. Shall we go?'
Wang Li arrived within ten hours.
Skip and Yvonne had lost track of the world, had forgotten about him. There, in that curving chamber, confronting that dome where elven forms and leaves and blooms crowded the air, they were coming to know one who fared between the stairs.
'What most of the lattice and all of the plants are,' Skip breathed. Til bet my right index finger. Not machinery, not oxygen renewal; the ship must have more effective systems. But pleasure. Renewal of the spirit.'
Yvonne regarded the great, dripping, rugged shape beyond. By now, every showpiece had been passed through the curious portal. The Sigman floated, rapt in a photograph of York Minster's Five Sisters. 'Do you know,' she said as softly, 'it isn't hideous. Not by our standards either, when you look at it right.'
'Shucks, I could'a told them that three years back,' Skip answered.
Across his mind drifted recollection of what he had said to her, their first day alone on the sea ship:
'Because most people lack the taste to realize the Sigman is not repulsive, I suppose unconsciously they took for granted it's a philistine. Sure, plenty of thinkers figured it'd be interested in our art, same's we'd be in Sigman art—but from the outside, as another phenomenon to observe and write a scientific paper about. What art they showed it at the beginning was such a small proportion of the diagrams and whatnot, and damn near randomly chosen, our chum may not even have recognized the objects for what they "were. And anyway, priority was put on communication by words. Everybody assumed that when that'd been achieved, any further matters could be discussed at leisure. They forgot words are by no means the only language. It never occurred to them the Sigman might've made this tremendous voyage for no other purpose than artistic inspiration —that the planets themselves provided so much that it begrudged what time it gave us, seeing as how we never brought anything it particularly wanted—'
His reminiscence broke off. The Sigman was approaching the dome wall. The photograph was held lightly in one. set of claws. The surrounding tentacle-fingers had plucked, from a resting place between vines, an album on the Parthenon. Another 'hand' gripped the optical projector.
Skip moved close. Awkward, he cartwheeled and swore. His inexperience in free fall kept delaying matters. Finally he got himself braced, sketchpad and pencil ready. Holographic equipment had been brought along bu didn't seem indicated at the moment. The Sigman pointed at the pictures while tracing lines of light which remained aglow until it erased or altered them. Skip's pencil flew in reponse.
'Uh-huh,' he said, mainly thinking aloud, 'it's fascinated by the contrast between Classical and Perpendicular architecture… is my guess. What do they have in common? Well, like the Golden Rectangle—I s'pose I can make that clear—' He remembered his companion. 'Say, Yvonne, here's a chance to extend the verbal language a bit, if I can convey an offer to swap sketches for its learning words—*
A spacesuited figure flew in. 'Ohl' Yvonne half screamed. Skip spoke more pungently.
Wang Li checked his trajectory, secured baggage, and opened helmet. Cold fury congealed his features.
'What is this?' he demanded. A forefinger stabbed at Skip.
The sigaroon bristled. 'Sir, the proper pronoun is "who". Or if you mean your question literally, then it's my belly button.'
Yvonne floated, gulping. 'You… Professor Wang… th-th-this soon?' she stammered.
The Chinese glared. 'My service insured itself against treachery. I had hoped the precautions were needless.'
'But—no, no—'
'I assume you do not intend murder,' Wang said. 'I shall inform my escorting officer that he can return to our ship.' He left.
Skip sought Yvonne, to hold and comfort her. The effort was a fiasco; he ended floundering in mid-air while his sketchbook and pencil drifted from reach. She remained alone in her desolation. The Sigman hooted. 'Sorry 'bout this,' Skip muttered at it.
Wang returned and started removing his spacesuit. Skip drifted within reach of a handgrip and stopped himself. He needed a minute to recover from the dizziness raised by centrifugal and Coriolis forces before he could say: 'Let me introduce myself. I'm Thomas Wayburn. You must be the Wang Li I've heard tell of. Honoured to know you.' Like the buck who got tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, and when they asked him later how he felt about it, he said that except for the honour, he'd sooner not have. 'I'm a new recruit who seems to've touched off the most surprising development in this project since—'
'Yes, you have a glib story prepared,' Wang said. Tlease spare me: What are those objects in the dome?
Pictures and— This was no deed of impulse. What is your plot?'
Skip was spared an immediate need to reply by the Sigman's vanishing aft. Yvonne rallied and said, 'Just when we had kindled interest there, yes, eagerness, you interrupted.'
Wang pinched his mouth together. He continued un-suiting and making his living arrangements. Skip thought: This kicks us over to Plan Delta. Though I doubt we'll find a chance to hoodwink him, if he's the shrewdie they say. Odds are we'll be driven back to perfect honesty and straightforwardness. Well, that's more relaxing—
There was no sound, no shiver. Suddenly they, everything loose… drifted to the dome surface, a slow and gentle descent, yes, descent, because 'up' and 'down' existed again… weight increased minute by minute, and Wang cried aloud in Chinese, Yvonne gasped, Skip yelled, "We're moving I'
Wang's lean form straightened. 'Quickly,' he rapped. 'Too many articles have -been placed in the expectation of continued weightlessness. We must rearrange them before they topple together and are ruined.'
Skip respected him for that; and the job did take his mind off itself. Not that he was afraid. The Sigman could ream the humans out by better means than this, if it wanted. Excitement trumpeted in him. Where are we bound? Still, the prosaic tasks of straightening out the mess helped him stay on a moderately even keel. By the time they were finished, acceleration had stabilized at what Wang and Yvonne agreed must be the one-third gee normally observed. Skip revelled in bounding around, feathery-light, till she begged him to stop. \
'Not now. We have to think. What are we going to do?'
'Why, wait till our host returns,' Skip said. 'You knows a better 'ole?—- And here, he is.'
The Sigman clambered stolidly about the lattice, assembling the artwork. Yvonne shook her head. 'My ears hurt,' she complained.
'Mine likewise,' Wang said. 'And do we not appear to be speaking more loudly?'
The reason burst upon Skip. 'Chew and swallow,' he advised. 'Equalize air pressure inside and out.
Pressure's rising. I'll bet you, Professor Wang, I'll bet you a dinner at the best restaurant in Peking against a can of slumgullion, it'll reach about two Earth atmospheres and stop. We can stand that and the Sigman probably requires it.' He hugged Yvonne. His laughter came half gleeful, half hysterical. 'It wants us to come join itl'