Benita had planned to spend a couple of days in delicious sloth, though her desire for rest unraveled as she watched CNN try to explain the disappearance of the Old City of Jerusalem. She knew at once who’d done it, though she had no idea why. With such an uproar going on, she thought it would probably be impolite to inquire from any of the people from Wednesday night’s dinner, even Mr. Riley, and she had no way to reach the two individuals she really wanted to ask.
When she went out for lunch, there were sign carriers on the street, most of them claiming the imminent end of the world. Newspaper headlines were huge, and the stories about Jerusalem took up the first four pages of the Washington Post. Everyone was chattering about what it meant or who had done it, being either angry or awed or both. Benita tried to ignore it as she made a stop at the bank and went shopping for work clothes. She had to haul a saleswoman away from a group with their heads together in the corner. First things first. Until the world actually ended, people still had to go to work, and Benita had not brought enough clothing to get through a work week.
That evening the panic continued, with all the world’s pundits appearing over and over, different combinations of them, most of them contradicting one another and some even contradicting what they’d said earlier in the day. Elaine Pagels was asked to comment on the happening in the light of Gnosticism. The head of Union Theological Seminary warned against nihilistic millennialism. The news covered nuts in Jerusalem, both Jewish and Islamic, who were protesting or affirming God by throwing themselves into the hole, only to turn up unhurt out in the desert a little while later. While the religious scholars were careful not to cast doubt on divine motives, the religious profiteers were soliciting money like mad so they could “carry the message of salvation in these final days.” Most of the TV partisan-pundits were blaming more earthly forces. The left wingers agreed that secret research must have taken place, that secret weapons had been developed, and that the military industrial complex might be responsible, though the right wingers thought other countries had probably done it. For a wonder, nobody accused ETs, possibly out of fear of ridicule. Benita wondered how long the president could or would keep the truth under his hat.
Simon left a peremptory voicemail message at the hotel, asking her to come to the shop. When she arrived, he was obviously unnerved as he showed her upstairs to the apartment.
“These people showed up at the crack of dawn yesterday,” he said in the elevator, shaking his head. “Their spokesman said they were from some Sephardic Foundation I’ve never heard of. They provide services for worthy Hispanics of all faiths who are, as they put it, ‘Hard working and honest.’ They quoted Maimonides at me. Evidently he advocated anonymity in philanthropy. Are you Jewish?”
She gaped. “Well…a lot of Spanish settlers in the new world were secretly Jewish, because of the Inquisition, you know. But if my family was, they kept it a secret from me.”
“No lighting candles on Friday nights? No keeping two sets of dishes?”
She shook her head. Actually, Grandma had lighted candles on Friday night, and every other night. They hadn’t had electricity until just a few years before she died.
Simon continued, “I just thought it might explain something. The spokesman wouldn’t tell me how they found out about you, and he said you knew nothing about them, but nonetheless, the crew poured in all day yesterday, nobody would talk to me except the one older guy—who looked awfully familiar, come to think of it—and they didn’t leave until dawn.”
“What on earth were they doing?”
“Wait until you see!”
She smelled it first. A strong combination of new paint, new carpet and sawdust. The loft had been transformed. The ceiling had been lowered and covered with drywall dotted with recessed light fixtures. Along the line of columns, all the way to the ceiling, a substantial partition had been built that included bookshelves on the living room side as well as a built-in desk with computer terminal and modem. The bedroom had a closet and a door and both rooms were now furnished tastefully. Curtains on traverse rods covered the windows, and two colorful oriental rugs covered most of the living room floor, which had obviously been sanded and waxed. Another big rug softened the bedroom.
A washer–dryer had been installed. New light fixtures glowed discreetly. The bed was made up and covered by a colorful spread. Extra linens and towels were stacked in the cabinet. Kitchen equipment, dishes, pots and pans were on the shelves. Here and there were Mami’s things. Her sewing basket. The little carved box she’d kept her few treasures in. A quilt Mami’s grandmother, Benita’s great-grandmother, had made. Everything had been furnished, even a large dog bed and FIDO food and water dish.
“They got everything,” she said. “Except the dog.”
He muttered in a dazed voice, “The guy said he had specific instructions how it was to be finished, and he told me to tell you the dog would be here as soon as you move in.”
“What was this outfit called?” she asked, awed.
He pulled a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. “Fundacion Circulo del Alto Mando. He said in English it means the Brass Ring Foundation.” Simon tented his eyebrows at her.
“Yes, it means that, sort of,” she said, hiding her amusement. It sounded like General Wallace was the alto mando, or “big brass,” who had done the talking. She couldn’t imagine General McVane making puns for her benefit.
“He said you caught the brass ring on the merry-go-round. Have you ever heard of them?”
“Never before now,” she told him. “How strange. And wonderful, of course. For me.”
“Well, me too. It saved me a hell of a lot of work. And money. I never knew the place could look this great. I told the guy I’d have to raise your rent, and he told me not to try it unless I wanted a great deal of trouble. When he said it, he sounded more like a…commanding officer than a representative of some charity. With the dark glasses and the hat pulled down, I couldn’t really see who he was.”
She said sympathetically, “They’d gone to so much trouble, I suppose they didn’t want anything to spoil it.”
There was no reason not to move in at once and no reason to go back to the hotel except to pick up her bag. Simon drove her over and waited for her. As she paid the bill, however, she remembered the furniture and supplies she’d ordered by catalogue. From a lobby pay phone she called the store and spun them a story. Family emergency. She had to go back to Colorado. Would they refund? Yes, the woman said, on nonsale items. Where would the check come from? From their warehouse complex in Atlanta, where all the computers were. Fine, said Benita. Cancel the order and refund what they could, please, in care of Angelica Shipton, at such-and-such an address in California.
After dropping her bags in the apartment and opening the windows to air out the fresh paint smell, she went down to the bookstore to start learning the routines. It differed from the store in Albuquerque in many details, but basically it was the same old job. She thought it would be more fun, however, since many of her pet gripes were eliminated. The computers were better, faster, and the software was easier to use. The bookkeeping system was very high tech and three-quarters automatic, and there were scanners for perpetual inventory. She had been telling Goose for years that they needed scanners. These shops even had a reorder program integrated with the inventory, one that printed out the reorder lists by jobbers for any books that had sold off the shelves within a specified period of time. All the stores were coordinated, for accounting purposes, and all the accounting was done here.
The Washington store stayed open until 7:00, to catch the afterwork shoppers and late calls or Web orders, many of them from congressional offices.
“The legislature being here, with all the lobbyists in the world hovering like bees over honey, that’s where we got the name, The Literary Lobby,” Simon muttered, interrupted by a huge yawn. “Sorry. I suppose I could have gone home to bed last night, but I didn’t want to leave the workmen alone in the building, even with the connecting doors locked. I bunked in the office, but with this Jerusalem thing, I left the TV on in case the world ended. I didn’t want to sleep through it.”
“Why don’t you go on home now,” she suggested.
“I am. Your keys are on your desk: they’re labeled. Don’t unlock the outside front door until ten, Monday through Saturday. Sundays, we don’t open until noon. First one in makes the coffee.”
He left, locking the door behind him, and she went back through the stockroom to the elevator and up to her own apartment, where she found two dead male movie stars sitting next to one another on the couch. She screamed and her balance shifted, making her stagger.
They apologized in Chiddy and Vess’s voices.
She couldn’t name either of their likenesses, but the faces were familiar. “You startled me,” she cried, collapsing on the sofa. “You know, it’d really be helpful for me if you’d settle on a shape. If you won’t do that, at least give me a way to know which of you is which. You know you’ve got everyone in the world upset. Why are you doing it?”
“Why are we doing what?” asked the larger famous person, smiling tenderly at her. Benita had seen that smile somewhere. Late movie. Old movie, black-and-white. She shook her head, trying to concentrate. Not Cary Grant. Gregory Peck? No. Who was that other one? The dark, incredibly handsome one? Like the heartthrob guy on ER, only more so. She came to herself with a start.
“Why did you do that thing in Israel? And why are you being men?” she cried. “I was just getting used to the Indian ladies.”
“Which question do you want answered?” asked the larger man gradually morphing into Indira, complete with sari.
“Why Jerusalem?”
“We did it because General McVane challenged us. We had to show your people that we have powers, that we can do things you can’t. Your president mentioned that the Middle East was a powder keg, as he put it, which makes Jerusalem a focal point. So, we removed it. We can remove more of the city if the modest hole we’ve created so far isn’t sufficient to calm the storm.”
“I should think it would only agitate things,” she said.
“Oh, it may. Temporarily. We’ll do some suspensions, too. That’s usually quite efficacious.”
“Suspensions?”
“We’ll tell you when you need to know.”
“What did you do with the Temple Mount?”
“It’s intact. It isn’t destroyed, just…sequestered. We put the whole city away, for now. In another…realm. We can transport the entire population of the area to that same place. Or, we can pick and choose. All the Jews. Or all the Palestinians. We may even give it back, in time. If the people earn it.”
“Can I tell them that?”
“You may tell them anything we tell you,” said Vess, indifferently. “We’re very careful about what we tell you. We don’t want to put you in the position of lying to your people, or withholding information.”
She demanded, “I really need names I can use all the time. And please warn me if you’re going to be people I know are dead!”
“Very well,” said Lara, with a smile that appeared perfectly genuine. “I am always Vess, that is, the shorter or smaller one of whatever we are. The taller or larger will always be Chiddy.”
The other said, “As we told you, these are childhood names, from our undifferentiated years. Your people are very undifferentiated, and for that reason, these names are probably suitable. A Chiddy is a small plant that makes people itch—you would say ‘nettle,’ and a Vess is an insectlike creature with beautiful wings, like a butterfly. You are now wondering whether we are really male or female, and the answer is no, we aren’t.”
“Chiddy, why did you scatter those people all over Israel?”
“Well, that’s rather an overstatement, don’t you think? None of them were farther than ten miles from the place they were taken. None of them were injured. No small children were separated from parents. People of one ethnic group were separated from other ethnic groups that might have been inimical. If we’d put them all in one place, there would have been injuries, violence.” As he spoke, Chiddy gradually morphed back into the man he had appeared to be before. Tyrone Power. It came back to her. Mami, sighing over old movies of Tyrone Power.
“By the way,” said Vess, also re-morphed, as he got up to look at himself in the mirror on the far wall. “When you speak to the president, tell him not to worry about Afghanistan. The effects are reversible.”
She opened her mouth to ask what about Afghanistan, but Chiddy was already speaking.
“I have been eager to tell you how much we admire your race’s artistic achievements! While we were looking over the problems in the Middle East, we stopped in Italy to view some of your famous artworks.”
Vess enthused, “The Sistine Chapel. There are simply no words!”
Benita nodded, understandingly. She had coveted a book of Michelangelo reproductions done shortly after the ceiling was cleaned, and Goose had given it to her for a birthday present. A huge, lovely thing. She’d never taken it home, afraid it would be ruined by Bert in one of his rages.
She said, “Most people agree that the cleaning was very well done. They were able to eliminate a number of changes that other artists had made in succeeding times. In fact they discovered that one figure they’d always thought was male was, in fact, female.”
Chiddy turned away from her, his face turning a curious shade of sick green, his body slightly curved, as though he had been taken by sudden nausea. He trembled. “I didn’t know it had been cleaned,” he murmured.
Benita reached out to him, but he gestured her away. After a moment’s silence, he turned to face her, saying brightly, “Ah, Benita, ah, yes, we have an errand for you.” He took several deep breaths. “We need you to deliver a message to the president.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just—”
Chiddy glanced at Vess with what Benita understood to be impatience.
Vess said firmly, “Benita, please. We’ve already said. Please concentrate your attention. Once we’ve made contact and proved that we exist by allowing recordings to be made, once we’ve proved that we have power, as I imagine we have now done, we prefer not to talk to those in authority. Those in authority always want to argue. Or complain. We have never approached any planet where those in power did not want to do one or both. If we speak to any person directly, or give any reason to think we might speak to people directly, everyone in the world will want an individual audience to complain about what we’ve done or suggest we do something else! You, on the other hand, have nothing to argue about, and they can’t argue with you because you merely deliver the message. You won’t know anything except what we tell you, so bothering you is pointless.”
Fascinated despite herself, she asked, “What’s the message?”
“Firstly: Two days from now, on Sunday night at ten P.M., Eastern Time, we will announce over national television what we are doing here and how we will proceed.
“Secondly: Once they know we are present, the populace of a planet almost always sends us messages. The messages are to be accumulated somewhere to be picked up. Someone will tell you where they are, and we will pick them up. Tell the powers that be that you will not transmit spoken messages. Even if you were constrained to do so, we would ignore them. This is to prevent your being inundated and our being influenced by discourtesies that might be blurted in anger, such as General McVane’s outburst the other evening.”
“Are you going to rewrite our laws or something? That could make it difficult for some people.”
“No, no. Your laws will still be in effect, more or less. They’ll probably be needed less as we go along, but we won’t fool with them, at least not just yet. Tell the president not to worry about it. Any confusion we cause will be temporary and minimal. Tell him, also, that we will make any further announcements to the public on television, just as we will do this first time.”
“At regular intervals?”
“Not necessarily, no. Whenever we have something to say. At this time, we plan only the first announcement, and it won’t be lengthy.”
They rose and moved together out into the hall, pausing there long enough for Chiddy to say, “When the government people fixed your apartment, they put in a great many listening and looking devices. We have made the ones in the bathroom inoperable, as we understand your culture to prefer. The others we left intact. However, they will show only you, fully clothed in whatever you choose to wear on any given day, moving about, reading, fixing food, whatever is appropriate to the hour when you are here. If you change clothes, the viewers will show you selecting the clothes and then going into the bathroom to change. Whatever you are really doing, they will not see. They are not seeing us here tonight. They are seeing you seated on the couch, reading a book.
“Whenever we ask you to transmit a message, you may say it appeared on your table, but it self-destructed once you had read it. We got that idea from an old TV show of yours.”
“Strange,” murmured Vess, “that we had never thought of it ourselves.”
Benita murmured, “I can understand your being enamored of old Mission Impossible technology, but if you expect them to believe you’re using me as an intermediary, you should black out this place every now and then for a few moments. If they can see me whenever I’m here, but never see you, and if all my time is accounted for, they’ll get to the point where they’ll suspect I’m making things up.”
Chiddy paused, staring at his feet in a very humanish way.
“She’s right,” he said. “We have never visited a moderately advanced world before, so we must adjust our methods. Should it be blackouts, or fake visits?”
“I think blackouts,” she said firmly. “I’d have to remember what was supposed to have happened during fake visits, in case they asked.”
“Very well,” said Chiddy. “We will black you out for a time whenever we are with you. As we speak, we are making a blacked-out time.”
“Now, what about if I have visitors? If Simon comes up to my apartment, or if I invite someone in?”
“On those occasions, we will let them see what is actually happening,” Chiddy said, his handsome face twisted into a slightly lecherous leer. “Unless you ask us not to.”
“That facial expression should be avoided,” she told him severely. “It is most insulting.”
“An actor named Price did it,” Chiddy replied.
“He was almost invariably the villain,” cautioned Benita. “What about my phone line? Did they tap my phone?”
“Both this phone and the ones downstairs, yes. But unless it is a call we ask you to make, they will hear only innocuous conversations. You, asking if there are tickets available for the opera. You, wondering if a retailer has an item in another color. You, ordering books. It’s all being done automatically. Believe us, no one will see or hear you doing anything significant or embarrassing. You may scold or bless your children, laugh or cry, or even scratch your intimate parts in private. The only calls they will actually record are the ones you make to them.”
They waved, stepped into the elevator, and closed the door. Though she listened carefully, she heard nothing on the roof, not even footsteps. Come to think of it, she hadn’t even heard the elevator. She opened the elevator door and found it still on her floor, but empty. It hadn’t gone anywhere. She fretted for a few moments, then went to the phone and placed the call, announcing herself as the intermediary and asking to speak to Chad Riley. Evidently the switchboard knew about her, for Mr. Riley was available at once. When she mentioned Afghanistan, he interrupted her.
“But, we’ve just learned about it.”
“About what?” she asked.
“The plague in Afghanistan. I can’t talk right now. I’ll get back to you.”
A surprising someone did get back to her: the First Lady, sounding equally baffled and very slightly amused. “Yes, Intermediary. We’re told that all the women in Afghanistan have gone bald. Overnight. Not only that…the women…they…”
“What!” she demanded.
“They’ve grown long noses and long chins and hairy moles. They’ve lost half their teeth. Any of them past puberty are ugly as sin; even the young ones look like the Wicked Witch of the West, or that old hag in Snow White. Each one has a tattoo on her forehead in the local dialect that says, The lustful who punish beauty would be wiser to control lust. The Afghanis are claiming we did it!”
“Of course we didn’t. The aliens did! They’ve fixed it so the Taliban won’t have any excuse for covering them in robes and veils and locking them up all the time!”
“That’s what the Secretary of State says. She says now that they’re really ugly, they can go to the market or school or leave the house and get a job. Is that why you called, Intermediary? Or was there something from you know who?”
“Am I supposed to talk on the phone?”
“They tell me it’s a secure line. The people who did up your living quarters saw to things.”
Oh, they most certainly did, Benita commented to herself before taking a deep breath and delivering the message.
Long silence. “I’ll tell…the president. What do you think they’re going to say on TV?”
“I haven’t even a hint, ma’am. They said I can say to you anything they said to me, but in this case they didn’t tell me what they have in mind. They did say the Old City still exists, that they’ve put it on another world…no, in another realm, is what they said. They said they can selectively put all the Jews or all the Palestinians in that same place, if they choose, and they hinted that the people in the Middle East can get Jerusalem back if they’ll quit killing each other.”
“It still exists?”
“They said they didn’t destroy it, just moved it. They also said to tell the president that Afghanistan is reversible, but I didn’t know what they meant until now.”
Long silence. Then the FL said, “The only thing I’m sure of at the moment is there has to be a press conference. This has gone way beyond keeping to ourselves. Even if McVane hadn’t broken security, there are too many things happening. If they’re going to broadcast on Sunday night, we have to let the public know before then. People have to know that we’re not hiding anything.”
“They also need to know you have little or no control over what’s happening,” cautioned Benita. “Otherwise, you may get blamed for it. Will the president be back in time?”
“He’ll be back late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Did the recordings come out? The ones you all made at the dinner?”
“You knew about that?”
“Well, they said so, remember? They said they’d allowed it.”
“The recordings came out. They don’t show Indira and Lara, however. They show two sort of humanoid creatures with corrugated heads and several sets of eyes. Can you explain that?”
She thought about it. “They appeared as women in saris because we could be comfortable with that. And, probably, because they’re practicing being human in order to figure us out. They wouldn’t want to stir up animosity against India, however, and being two women in saris could have done that. So, they were women in saris to us, but to the rest of the world they’ll look like something definitely extraterrestrial.”
“They told you this?”
“No. I’m only guessing.”
“Very sensible for guessing. Have you seen them again?”
“They visited me here in the apartment.” She thought about telling what they’d appeared as, then discarded the notion. Everyone was confused enough. “I can’t pronounce their real names, so they’re using nicknames, from when they were children. Chiddy and Vess. They’ve promised to stick with that.”
“Well, I’d better pass all this along,” murmured the FL. “Ten P.M., Eastern time, day after tomorrow. By the way, Sasquatch is en route. General Wallace had him picked up at the kennel, and he should be with you tomorrow.”
Sasquatch arrived on Saturday morning. The phone rang at eight, as she was having her breakfast, and an anonymous voice said somebody was waiting with the dog at the outer door. Before she unlocked and opened it, she gave the man a good looking-over, recognizing him as one of the security people present at the dinner. There was no trouble recognizing Sasquatch. He lunged through the door when she barely opened it, jerking the man at the other end of the leash off balance so that he stumbled in after the dog.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, around the mess of fur that had reared up and put his paws on her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
He picked himself up, unwinding the leash from his hand. “He’s a big one. It’s hard to make him go anywhere he doesn’t want to, isn’t it? Are you okay with him, or do you need some help?”
“I’m fine with him,” she replied, easing Sasquatch into a more suitable position, with all four feet on the ground. “Thank you for bringing him.”
“That’s all right,” he said, saluting as he backed away to let the door swing closed.
As she pulled the door shut and locked, she saw him trudging away toward a station wagon parked behind the store. Sasquatch followed her into the elevator, albeit unwillingly, where he howled until it reached the roof. There she took the leash off and allowed him to move about, sniffing and marking territory on every protruding vent pipe or aerial. He put his front feet up on the parapet, which was quite high enough to prevent anyone falling over by accident, and looked over the edge several times, commenting sotto voce when he saw something interesting, such as another dog. Then he went over to the big planter and had a drink from the pan beneath the air conditioner. Someone had hooked up the watering tubes, Benita noticed. The soil was moist and translucent green frills were coming up very quickly, already several inches high. Benita had been on the roof the day before, and she hadn’t noticed anything growing then.
Sasquatch went down the metal steps onto the lower roof of the other building and went through the same routine there. When he ran out of pee, she led him back into the elevator and took him down to the apartment, where she showed him his bed, his food dish—already stocked with kibble—and his water bowl.
He roved the apartment, smelling every piece of furniture and along the edge of every rug. He found the open living room window at the center of the row, one of the two in that room that actually opened. Benita let the windows stand open when it was cool and dry outside, for the illusion of fresh air if not the reality. Sasquatch put his front feet on the deep sill and stood for a while looking at cars moving on the street below.
Finally, the dog found the bedroom. He ignored the large dog bed in the corner, leaping immediately upon her bed, where he circled twice, lay down and went to sleep.
On Saturday evening, the president held a press conference. He said the Earth was being visited by extraterrestrials, he explained that a recording had been made at a recent meeting, and he showed the tape, though without sound. The president explained that neither he nor the vice president had been able to be present at the hastily arranged affair, but he introduced each of the participants, Mr. Riley from the FBI, representing the Attorney General; General McVane from the Pentagon; General Wallace, a well-known and loved representative of the American People; the First Lady, representing the president; the Secretary of State, representing the U.S. government; and the two envoys. Also, a woman he called, “Jane Doe, the intermediary selected by our visitors.”
Someone, perhaps the ETs, had morphed Benita’s face and hair on the tape, making her a blonde, twenty pounds heavier, with a different nose and mouth. Benita, while being glad she wasn’t recognizable, didn’t appreciate the disguise. When the tape came to the after-dinner speeches, the sound came on so everyone could hear the speeches: the FL, the SOS, the general, and then the envoys. The tape stopped moments before the visitors disappeared.
The president went on in his serious voice. “Since the dinner last Wednesday evening, we have had one further message from our visitors. Tomorrow night at ten o’clock, Washington time, seven Pacific time, the envoys will address the nation on television, explaining their intentions. Prior to that occurrence, I will be meeting with various congressional committees. I know many of you have questions. Foremost among them will no doubt be the question of whether our visitors were responsible for the recent events in Israel and Afghanistan. The intermediary tells us they say they are responsible, though they have not told her how it was done. They assure her Jerusalem was not destroyed but remains whole, elsewhere. They assure her the so called ugly-plague in Afghanistan is reversible.
“I would ask you to keep in mind that no one has died in either Israel or Afghanistan as a result of these happenings. At this point, I am as much in the dark as you are, and I cannot answer any questions. We should all be patient. We have detected no malicious intent in our visitors. We believe they are what they represent themselves to be. All questions will eventually be answered, and it would be helpful if speculation were kept to a minimum.”
He started to leave, to a babble of “Mr. President, Mr. President,” stopping when one reporter shouted: “Tell us about Jane Doe, Mr. President, you can tell us that!”
He turned back to the lectern. “Jane Doe is an American housewife. She is married and has children. I cannot tell you why the extraterrestrials picked her, and she doesn’t know. Both the envoys and Jane Doe herself have asked that she remain anonymous. She is not a celebrity, she has not chosen to be a public figure. As the envoys made clear, they chose someone who would have no personal agenda concerning their actions or ours, rather than some head of state or government employee or political figure who might have an ax to grind. She knows no more than we do. Think of her as a kind of telephone line between them and us. She’s not responsible for what comes and goes over the line, so let us set aside our prurient, window-peeping greed for the private details of others’ lives and leave her alone.”
This time he departed, refusing any other questions.
“Fat chance they’ll leave me alone,” Benita remarked to Sasquatch. “The Sunday papers will be full of speculation, ninety-nine percent of it useless! Some politicos will say it’s all fake.”
The bookstore didn’t open until noon on Sunday. Early in the morning, however, the Washington Post and the New York Times were delivered through a chute from the side street into the stockroom, along with half a dozen other papers from around the country. Around eight o’clock, she went down to get herself copies of several, bringing them back upstairs to read. The outcry was predictable. Her least favorite columnist’s prissy face sneered above his usual malicious column, and a good many others decried the president’s “unwillingness” to answer questions, raised the possibility that Jane Doe might be either the president’s mistress or a foreign agent, or offered the idea that the whole thing had been done by special effects and that the president no doubt knew more than he admitted to knowing.
Various other pedants offered opinions ranging from the necessity for an immediate declaration of war against any one or several of five foreign countries to the novel idea, expressed by one fat talk show host, that the envoys were simply Democrats in ET suits, trying to distract the nation from more pressing matters such as cutting taxes. Photo excerpts from the dinner tape were used and reused on page after page of the newspapers. The many-eyed monsters, however, who should have seemed ogreish, actually appeared to be rather loveable, like a cross between a sharpei puppy and a jumping spider done by Disney animation artists.
The furnishings of the apartment included a television, something Benita hadn’t thought to order for herself. At a quarter to ten that night she was poised on the edge of the couch with Sasquatch at her feet. No one had said which station, and she was prepared to surf them all. At five to ten, however, the show she was watching faded away and soothing music began to play over a pattern of moving fronds, like a forest. Every channel including the shopping and religious networks had the same music, the same fronds. At precisely ten o’clock, the music faded, the fronds parted to disclose the images of Chiddy and Vess, larger and smaller, side by side. They had the same form as in the tape of the dinner, though now the mouths seemed to be more flexible. They were wearing clothing that did not look at all like a uniform. When they spoke, the lips moved the way human lips move, and when not moving, they smiled. The skin around the largest pairs of eyes crinkled warmly.
“We bring greetings from the people of Pistach to the people of Earth,” said Chiddy. “As we have explained to your officials, we have come to assist you in meeting the prerequisites for galactic coexistence, what we call Tassifoduma, what you in the United States would call Being Neighborly. Tassifoduma is a prerequisite for planets wishing to join the Confederation of intelligent life-forms. We have chosen to start with your country because it will serve as a pattern for all the rest.
“The first prerequisite of Being Neighborly is to have a society in which almost all individuals achieve contentment, since discontented societies often explode over their borders into other people’s space, causing great trouble and woe. You have many examples of these disruptions in your own history. There are some such going on in your world even now, so we need not belabor the point.
“To begin with, therefore, we will help you balance your country among its many needs and demands to provide greater comfort and contentment to all your people, greater care and attention to your environment. The first step in any project is to find out what is happening to cause woe. The second step is to discontinue the cause! To stop a flood, one must find out where the water is coming from and then shut off the water. To stop a fire, one must find out what is burning and then remove the fuel. So, we will first find out what conditions are most distressing for the people, then we will help you discontinue the conditions which lead to pain, frustration, and misery.
“Being Neighborly means not upsetting people! In order for us to avoid upsetting you, we must first determine what you value and believe and want. This week, each person over the age of eight will receive a questionnaire designed to elicit that person’s beliefs and wants. This questionnaire must be completed with promptness and complete honesty. If people were to tell us untruthfully that they wanted longer working hours for less pay, and if we were to set up conditions requiring longer working hours at less pay, those people might be most distressed. Each questionnaire will be in your language, whatever your language is, just as this program is in your language, whatever your language is. If you have any difficulty, you may call the number printed at the bottom of the questionnaire and an assistant will be provided for you. When the questionnaires have been returned in the envelopes provided, we will tabulate them, and only then will we take the first step.
“We are sure you have all heard of the disappearance of Jerusalem and the change in appearance of the women of Afghanistan. A military man who met with us last Wednesday demanded proof that we could do what we said we could. While in our society such a challenge would be very impolite, we took no offense. We selected two proofs that would harm no one and have some positive value, while still being illustrative of our abilities. The more freedom given the women of Afghanistan, the prettier they will become. The more they are kept in seclusion, the uglier they will get and the worse they will smell, and lest anyone vent anger by attacking a woman or women, anyone doing so will bear the pain himself. During the past week, several attempts to stone women to death have resulted in the severe mashing and bone-breaking of the stone-throwers. They are not dead—we do not believe in causing deaths—but they will take a long painful time to heal.
“Also, the greater the peace prevailing among Israelis and Palestinians, the more likelihood that Jerusalem will be returned. A continuance of violence might lead to the expansion of the hole we have already made, or even to the removal of other sacred sites or what we call suspensions. Suspensions cause selective groups to fall into a comatose state. It is a most effective tool for peace when a whole nation is suspended for a week or a month or even a year or longer, while life goes on around them. Certain countries in your world seem intent upon interfering with others or harboring what you call terrorists. These countries are candidates for suspension, all or in part. The parents among you probably make fighting children take a time out. It is a good way to combat violence. If we had been here when Serbia began to behave so badly, we would have suspended all its people for a year, at least, and we would have found the leaders responsible for the bad behavior and shown them their errors.
“You should know that we do not require persons to agree with us. You have freedom of speech in this country, and it is valuable both to you and to us. We have no interest in hampering it. You may insult us if you wish. You may call us ugly names. We take no offense. Insults and names will not change the situation before you, which admits of only two alternatives. To be a neighbor, Earth must be a world in which children are born to peace and a place of their own, in which all are educated, in which personal freedoms and community civilities are well balanced, in which the environment is respected and unnatural conflict is restrained. Either we will be successful in helping your world achieve this, or we will leave it as it is, building a fence around it so that your people may not leave it. Many of your politicians may hope we do exactly that. Their horizons are narrow and they do not seek to widen them. Others, however, would regret the confinement. In order to do what is best, we need to know what you want.
“We thank you for your time and attention, and we return you to your usual programming.”
The two disappeared, the screen blinked and became the X-Files. Benita reflected that the X-Files might find it necessary to do some retaping. The truth was no longer out there; it was right here, staring her in the face.
EARTH VISITED BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS ALIENS
APPEAR ON TELEVISION
REPUBLICANS ATTACK PRESIDENT
MORSE CLAIMS PRESIDENT WITHHELD INFORMATION
WHITE HOUSE ADMITS DELAY, FEARED HOAX
PRESIDENT DIDN’T WANT TO PANIC PUBLIC
MYSTERIOUS KILLING IN FLORIDA
BONES OF MEN FOUND TRAMPLED INTO EARTH
ACLU DECRIES ATTEMPT TO QUESTION AMERICAN PUBLIC
QUESTIONNAIRES COULD THREATEN CIVIL LIBERTIES
ALIENS ARE INSECTS, SAYS SCIENTIST
OTHERS SAY TOO MANY LEGS
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION CLAIMS
ETS ARE PSYCHOLOGICALLY HUMAN
NO VIOLENCE IN MIDEAST IN PAST THREE DAYS