After a night of tossing and turning, feeling so feverish that she flung the covers from her bed, Nesta was longing for morning to come.
The clock by her bed crept from seven to eight. Drifting in and out of reverie, she waited for the dawn. However grey and bleak it might be, it would be welcome. Then she heard her mother moving around in the house. It was Saturday morning, a time of later rising than on weekdays.
With just the faintest hope that her father would be sitting at the breakfast table, that the events of the night before had been no more than a very vivid dream, Nesta got dressed and went downstairs. But in the kitchen, she found only her mother. Alison was sitting waiting for her, waiting nervously and trying hard to appear calm.
‘Have your breakfast first,’ she said. ‘Then I have things to show you.’
To one side of the breakfast table there was a pile of newspapers.
Nesta glanced at them but said nothing. She was still angry and shocked and doubtful. She poured herself a cup of coffee and accepted toast and marmalade. It was as if something fragile were about to be broken, reality ready to be smashed to smithereens. She would not be the first to speak of it.
‘That’s all I want this morning,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel hungry.’
Alison sat by her, drinking coffee but eating nothing.
‘Everything that happened last night is true,’ said Alison very deliberately. ‘I know you’re hoping it was just a dream. That’s understandable. But it is true. And there is much more I have to tell you.’
Nesta gave her a sharp look, but persisted in saying nothing.
‘The reason your father had to go into the spaceship yesterday is to do with the stories in these newspapers.’
She put one hand on top of the pile of papers, flat as if swearing on the Bible. The resemblance flashed across Nesta’s mind and she half-smiled grimly.
‘You remember the story of the boy who disappeared from the hospital in Casselton?’ Alison said. ‘It was on TV last week. An overcoat was left on his bed. It is believed to belong to his father, though his father had already vanished in a mysterious way.’
‘Yes,’ said Nesta reluctantly. ‘I know. I watched it, same as everybody else.’
Alison handed her one of the newspapers, open at the right place.
‘Read that one first,’ she said.
After Nesta had read everything, including the letter from James Martin, she sat back and said, ‘So you think that this boy and his father are from outer space, and that the people writing about it are becoming suspicious?’
‘Strongly suspicious,’ said Alison, ‘and likely to become more so. It will go quiet, and then all sorts of security people will be secretly prying and investigating.’
‘And what has that to do with us? How do you connect it up?’ said Nesta coldly.
‘The names,’ said Alison. ‘Quite apart from anything else, the names give it away. Until now, no one on Earth has known the name of Ormingat. No one has ever suspected a thing. We have visited for the best part of three Earth centuries, watching carefully and acquiring all sorts of knowledge.’
‘And that is why you came here?’
‘No. In the beginning, we came as explorers. Then we realized what a mixed-up place the Earth was. Clever, yes, but so mindlessly aggressive! Our people became concerned in case Earthlings should ever acquire the ability to reach Ormingat. No one knows how we would handle the problem of a hostile, alien invasion. Ours is a peaceful planet. So, all those years ago, it was decided that the Earth must be one of our areas of study. We were to learn all we could about it.’
Alison paused and smiled wistfully. Learning was for her a way of life.
‘And it was far from wasteful,’ she went on, ‘even without the prospect of invasion. Much of the knowledge turned out to be wonderful, and well worth adding to our own culture. Yet, after all these years, there is still the dark side: wars and famine and pestilence. That is something we find so hard to understand.’
‘Aren’t you looking in the wrong place then?’ said Nesta with a trace of sarcasm in her voice. ‘York is not poverty-stricken. There’s no war or famine here. A local flood is a major event.’
‘No,’ said her mother, ‘I agree with you. We have had the easiest of missions. Our job is cultural research. We are not scientists or anthropologists. But there could be Ormingatrig anywhere on this Earth. We are not allowed to know who they are or where they are. We are not here to conquer or to colonize. One way or another, we are here to learn. Others may not be as lucky as we are.’
Nesta by now was well on her way to believing the story, but that did not make her like it any the better. There had always been something within her that seemed to set her apart. The implanted fairytale must have done its job after all.
‘We’re not so lucky now,’ she said flatly. ‘If you expect me to leave here and go to a place that to me is unknown and unwanted, I can’t count myself as lucky, no matter how beautiful your planet of Ormingat might be. It is yours, not mine.’
‘Take time to think about it,’ said her mother. ‘I know it seems strange, but to be different is not always bad. Think of yourself not so much as different, but as very special.’
Breakfast was over. The newspapers were stashed away in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
‘What will you do today?’ said Alison, almost as if everything were normal. ‘I am going into town, if you’d like to come. We can have lunch at Betty’s. There’s no point in sitting around here just waiting. I don’t suppose your father will be home for at least another day, maybe longer.’
‘I already told you, Mom, I promised to meet Amy,’ said Nesta, deliberately copying her mother’s casual tone. ‘We’re going to look at hockey boots. Amy has been picked for the junior team. It’s something new they’re trying out.’
‘That’s fine,’ said her mother, ‘but, remember you must not tell her anything about all this. I can’t stress too much how important it is to stay silent.’
‘What do you take me for?’ said Nesta indignantly, her eyes more grey than blue at that moment. ‘I wouldn’t tell her even if I could. She’d think I wasn’t all there.’
Nesta was becoming increasingly streetwise. School had done that much for her. She used expressions now that she never heard at home. Yet, coming from her, they sounded strange, as if she were not meant to talk in that way.