Angel was ushered, along with the gaggle of academics, to one of the blocky concrete outbuildings that clustered by the edge of the massive dome. The place was run by a mixture of civilians and military. The military personnel wore a few odd badges on their uniforms. The symbol that seemed to represent the unit here was a picture of a globe overlaid with a lightning bolt.
The group was led down, through a building that housed laboratories and administration offices. As they progressed, Angel was aware of uncomfortable smells that were growing in intensity. Ammonia was the strongest, but it was also tainted by sulfur and other burning chemical smells.
The silent procession had finally reached a point where Angel was sure that they had come to the edge of the dome. They turned a corner and her suspicions were confirmed—
The group had reached some sort of waiting area that butted up against the dome. The ceiling was ten meters above them, and the room was a hundred meters long, at least. With the exception of a massive chromed air lock door that was emblazoned with red and yellow warnings—the entire far wall was a huge window.
Angel took a seat with the rest of the academics without taking her eyes off the window. The window opened up on Hell.
The inside of the dome, past that panoramic window, had to be close to a half-kilometer in diameter. Haze filled its atmosphere; the far side was invisible. A dim red light illuminated a rocky landscape from a point that must have been near the apex of the dome.
Jets of the fire shot out from gaps in the rocks at regular intervals that ranged from two seconds for the small ones, to five minutes for a massive explosion near the window that could have totally immolated the Sikorsky she’d flown here in. There were rivers in there, but Angel found it hard to believe that the viscous black fluid in there was water.
There were things in there. Things that rolled, pulsed across the rocks, things with no definite form. They were fluid, undulating creatures. Once or twice she saw one of the smaller ones stray too close to the black river and become snagged by a black tentacle and drawn under. She couldn’t tell if it was some aquatic creature that was feeding like that, or if it was the river itself.
The buildings in there were near the center of the dome, and thus barely visible. They resembled nothing so much as termite mounds constructed of rock.
There were humans in there. She saw two walking some sort of patrol around the perimeter, right past the window. They wore full environment suits in desert camo. They seemed to be armed with flamethrowers.
It was Hell. That, or the site of multiple bio/nuke strikes.
She gripped the briefcase tightly and tried to tell herself that she was still on Alcatraz and the view out the window was contained under a concrete dome. It was too easy to imagine that she was looking out, not in, and when she left this building the world out there wouldn’t be the Frisco Bay, but some volcanic landscape out of Dante’s Inferno.
Steve, the sociologist, was sitting next to her. He seemed to notice her fascination. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say.”
“First time?”
Angel nodded and tore her gaze away from the boiling netherworld beyond the huge windows.
“I was goggle-eyed, too, the first time I saw that.” His hand rose from his computer and waved at the window. “They’ve managed to recreate the Race’s home atmosphere and engineer quite a bit of the ecology. Quite a feat considering we still have no idea where their home planet really is.”
VanDyne had built this, back when the aliens controlled it. The aliens—the Race—had been making themselves at home. This was far beyond the vidcast warrens that had been unearthed from beneath the Nyogi tower in Manhattan.
What kind of places have they built in Asia, if they’ve been here for sixty years? Angel could picture entire alien cities. Suddenly. Merideth’s fear of these things didn’t seem so calculated. The national mobilization against the alien threat now seemed less politically motivated.
“I thought they were from Alpha Centauri,” she whispered.
“The Race that came to Earth almost definitely came from there. It’s almost equally certain that they didn’t evolve there. They’ve colonized about eight planets close by, Alpha Centauri just happens to be the closest.”
“How do we know that?” Angel looked back at the window. The two humans in the environment suits were heading toward the massive air lock along a nearly invisible path between the rocks.
“A combination of detective work, analysis of the Race’s genetics, and a good look at the habitats they built.” He shook his head. “Not to mention a little blackmail.”
“Blackmail?” The two suited humans stationed themselves on either side of the dome end of the air lock. On Angel’s side of the air lock, a pair of marines bearing the lightning-earth insignia stationed themselves opposite the suited pair. The marines were armed with glorified stun rods that they bore like rifles. They stood at parade rest.
“Controlling every aspect of someone’s environment can make you very persuasive—here come the interviewees.”
The sight of the “interviewees” being herded toward the air lock was the most surreal yet. The double line of aliens, flanked by suited marines, emerged out of the heat shimmering haze by the termite mounds. At first she couldn’t make out any details. The first thought to come to mind was three-hundred-kilo slugs. There were two marines for each undulating white form.
As the unearthly parade closed on the air lock, Angel could see that the aliens were highly individualistic in their method of movement. One in front seemed to gather its mass to the rear, and then roll itself forward in a wave before repeating the process. Another one, farther back, extruded a few dozen tentacles the diameter of her forearm and grabbed the ground in front of it, pulling itself along the ground. One actually walked, after a fashion, on a trio of pads that were thicker than Angel’s torso. The most disturbing image was the one alien that parodied the humanoid form with two boneless legs and arms. With each step, its flesh rippled like a blister on the verge of bursting wide open.
Angel, as well as a majority of the country, had known that the aliens were some kind of intelligent multicellular amoeba. It was another thing to see a creature that had no set physical form. It was disturbing to see a creature for whom things like its number of limbs was a matter of personal preference. She had been prepared to see a creature that was a kind of amorphous blob. What she saw was a dozen different creatures, each with a definite form, each one different.
The procession reached the other side of the air lock. Above the massive chromed door, a rotating red light started flashing. A klaxon began sounding. After a while, the door began opening slowly.
She had almost gotten used to the background smells that permeated this place. As the door opened, she was assaulted by ammonia and sulfur, bile, rotten eggs, and something akin to burning rubber. She started coughing, and her eyes began to water. She could understand why the marines in there had to wear environment suits. Even if there was enough oxygen in there, who’d want to breathe it?
The door finished opening, and two aliens and four marines walked out into the waiting room. The pulsing dead-white slug-things were only a dozen meters from Angel, and she could tell that most of the smell was coming from them. She could hear them, too. They constantly made a shuddering, bubbly sound—like a stomach rumbling, or something much thicker than water that was just reaching its boiling point.
The marines guided the aliens down one of a dozen corridors that branched off the room. Over a PA system, a bored-sounding voice called out two names, and a pair of the academics got up from their seats and followed the aliens.
Just so.
This whole process had happened a lot. Enough times that a set routine had developed. Even the vidcasts that speculated on the nature of the aliens, and on the government’s role—usually through voice over video of the massive white dome that dominated Alcatraz—hadn’t come close to this.
It was easy, for a while, to forget her own problems and simply watch in awe.
Steve the sociologist left with the second pair of aliens. Even though she found his nonstop talking somewhat irritating, once he left she felt truly alone here. She was the only morey on the island, and the looks she got from the pinks ranged from the disinterest of the marines to outright hostility from most of the university people.
It went slowly. They cycled the air lock for each pair of aliens. It seemed unnecessary, the air lock was big enough to fit the whole parade at once. Angel supposed it was some sort of security measure. Angel began to worry as time went on and the party from the Sikorsky continued to be called up in pairs. Eventually, it left only her—worrying that someone had tagged her as a threat to national security.
Nearly two hours after they started marching aliens through the door, there was only one left and the PA finally called her name.
By now her nose was numbed by the constant stink that leaked through the air lock. As she fell in behind the last two marines and the single remaining alien, her sense of smell reawakened. The smell of bile and ammonia hung around the creature in a cloud. It smelled like nothing so much as urine mixed with fresh vomit. The white latexlike skin seemed to sweat moisture that was slightly more viscous than water. Angel wouldn’t want to touch it.
A procession of forklifts and golf carts carried crates from the helicopter through the open air lock. She lost sight of the parade as she followed the last alien down a new corridor.
Now that she was this close to the thing, she began to have second thoughts. This one had taken a hulking slug form, but even though it slid most of its mass along the floor, its midpoint was taller than she was. This one was bigger than most of the ones she had seen. Four hundred kilos of formless rippling flesh.
And she wanted to talk to this thing?
Her walk ended at a large metal door that slid aside for them. The room beyond was a squashed sphere made of some gray alloy. The lights were a dim reddish-green color except for one spotlight that was a normal yellow-white. The spotlight illuminated a human-looking desk and an office chair that seemed of a piece with the rest of the room. Angel could think of no other reason for the bizarre architecture than to make the alien feel at home in the debriefing room.
The alien moved inside and the marines took posts by the sides of the door. “You have two hours, Miss Lopez. Any notes or recordings you make will have to be cleared through base security. If you need to leave the room for any reason, use the intercom in the desk.”
Angel nodded, took a deep breath, and followed the alien into the room. She tried not to jump when she heard the door slam shut behind her. She set the briefcase on the desk and sat down on the human style chair. It took her a few minutes to get comfortable. She kept shifting around on the seat until she realized that she was using it as an excuse not to look at the thing that was in the room with her.
Angel looked up and stared at her “Interviewee.” It had pooled itself into the lowest part of the room, and had pulled a good part of its mass up to be level with the desk and Angel’s eyes. It resembled a weathered cone made of semiliquid ivory.
Now what? How was she supposed to start this? Did these things understand English?
The alien answered for her by asking, “It is new, yes?” The voice was horrid, like a massive bass speaker suspended in crude oil. The voice rippled and bubbled as much as the flesh that created it.
It also sounded vaguely familiar.
“If you’re referring to me,” Angel said, regaining her composure, “yes, this is my first time here.”
“We never are interviewed by nonhumans before.”
“I suppose not.” Angel realized where she’d heard a similar voice—the mainframe at VanDyne.
“What do we discuss?”
“I’m supposed to talk to someone who was involved with VanDyne Industrial.”
“Someone?”
“You were involved with VanDyne, right?”
“I am political observer for that corporate unit.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Do not understand. Your language is difficult.”
“What did you do for VanDyne?”
There were a few moments while the creature seemed to digest the question. Angel began to realize that this wasn’t going to be easy.
“I watch.”
Angel sighed and put her head in her hands. “What do you watch?”
“The politics, the media, the video. I collect data for Octal analysis.”
Okay, Angel thought, I’m talking to a professional couch potato. At least it looks the part.
She only had a couple of hours to talk to this thing. She’d better start hitting him with what she came here to find out. “You controlled VanDyne, right?”
“The Octal controls all corporate units.”
“No, I meant—” Angel shook her head. “Never mind, you answered my question.” VanDyne had been an alien enterprise, and this creature had been a part of it. “Did VanDyne employ anything other than—” What was that name? “The Race?”
“You are referring to Earth species?”
Angel nodded.
“Race operations are morally bound to employ native species.”
“Huh? Run that by me again.”
“Direct involvement is anathema. We do not intervene physically.”
The bubbling accent was making the creature hard to understand. Angel wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “You’ve got to be bullshitting me—”
“Bullshit?”
“—if you semiliquid motherfuckers are responsible for half the shit you’ve been accused of. There are riots out there . . .” Angel took a few deep breaths. She needed to calm down. Stress and lack of sleep was eating at her nerves. The fact that the ammonia smell from this thing was giving her the first throbs of an oncoming migraine wasn’t helping her composure.
“You do not understand. All Race does is rearrange assets to our advantage. Any Race who does more than this is ended. This is law.”
Angel wished that the Fed handed out programs with the aliens. Hard enough making sense out of that verbal slurry when she knew what it was talking about. “Okay, let’s back up. All you Race do is ‘rearrange assets?’”
“We do no harm to sentients—”
“But you fuck with the economy?”
“We analyze the social structure and feed the variables that give us the outcome we desire.”
She remembered her talk with Steve the sociologist on the flight out here. These things were running the whole sociopolitical structure of the planet like a giant computer program. According to the sociologists’ charts, they’d been doing so since the turn of the century. “What was the outcome you desired?”
“We prevent any social unit from attaining the social, political, or technological inclination to leave its solar system.”
Angel thought of what she knew of the history of the past half-century. The implications were staggering. “So what you people do, you buy politicians, right?”
“We fund appropriate people and organizations.”
“Terrorists, right?”
The creature was silent for a moment. Then it said, “The fine distinction your language makes between political units is difficult to understand. We fund the appropriate variables to manipulate the political structure.”
“Jesus-fucking-Christ, you buy terrorists and you say you don’t harm sentients?”
The creature sat there, white, rippling, impassive.
“How many wars are you people responsible for?”
“War?”
Angel stood up on the chair, but she restrained herself from shouting. “Wars. Like the ‘rearrangement of assets’ in Asia, when Tokyo got nuked—that kind of thing.”
“I apologize. Again, the way you discriminate arbitration between political units is difficult to discern. Language is difficult.”
“Well, how many ‘arbitrations’ are your fault?”
“During my Earth operation, I know of no large negotiation between political units unfavorable to the program objective.”
Angel sat down very slowly. “You are saying all of—”
“I know no details of the Asian operation. But until we are captured, no major political negotiation ended unfavorably. The assumption is the Asian operation is successful.”
“Those ‘negotiations’ have killed a hundred million people,” Angel whispered. Suddenly her problems seemed petty.
It all boils down to the end justifying the means, don’t it? That attitude is almost human.
If she had any idea of what to grab, she would have tried to strangle the thing.
She shook her head. No wonder the Fed tried to keep such a lid on these things. This kind of shit would fuck with everyone’s mind. There were a lot of people out there who wouldn’t like to think their glorious war for national whatever was the result of some alien pushing buttons.
The whole Pan-Asian war, an effing “political negotiation.” Kinda helped put things in perspective. Against her will, Angel found herself laughing.
“I do not understand,” said the creature.
“I suppose you wouldn’t. I was just thinking that I should thank you.”
“What thanks?”
“Well, if not for you and your buddies, I probably wouldn’t exist. If it wasn’t for the war boom in genetic engineering—” She shook her head and wondered if the thing she was talking to could even understand the concept of irony. “Back to VanDyne . . .”
“VanDyne,” repeated the creature.
“This was what VanDyne was for, right? Shifting assets?”
“Correct.”
“What kind of assets?”
“Technological assets. Informational assets—”
“Information?”
“Correct.”
“What kind of information?”