Everyone called them spaceships, but from the beginning the experts questioned that name. NORAD had recorded no incoming landing craft, and no mother ship orbited above. That left two main possibilities: they were visitations from an alien race that traveled by some incomprehensibly advanced method; or they were a mutant eruption of Earth’s own tortured ecosystem.
The domes were impervious. Probing radiation bounced off them, as did potshots from locals in the days before the military moved in to cordon off the areas. Attempts to communicate produced no reaction. All the domes did was sit there reflecting the sky in luminous, dreaming colors.
Six months later, the panic had subsided and even CNN had grown weary of reporting breaking news that was just the same old news. Then, entry panels began to open and out walked the translators, one per dome. They were perfectly ordinary-looking human beings who said that they had been abducted as children and had now come back to interpret between their biological race and the people who had adopted them.
Humanity learned surprisingly little from the translators. The aliens had come in peace. They had no demands and no questions. They merely wanted to sit here minding their own business for a while. They wanted to be left alone.
No one believed it.
Avery was visiting her brother when her boss called.
“Say, you’ve still got those security credentials, right?” Frank said.
“Yes…” She had gotten the security clearance in order to haul a hush-hush load of nuclear fuel to Nevada, a feat she wasn’t keen on repeating.
“And you’re in D.C.?”
She was actually in northern Virginia, but close enough. “Yeah.”
“I’ve got a job for you.”
“Don’t tell me it’s another gig for Those We Dare Not Name.”
He didn’t laugh, which told her it was bad. “Uh… no. More like those we can’t name.”
She didn’t get it. “What?”
“Some… neighbors. Who live in funny-shaped houses. I can’t say more over the phone.”
She got it then. “Frank! You took a contract from the frigging aliens?”
“Sssh,” he said, as if every phone in America weren’t bugged. “It’s strictly confidential.”
“Jesus,” she breathed out. She had done some crazy things for Frank, but this was over the top. “When, where, what?”
“Leaving tonight. D.C. to St. Louis. A converted tour bus.”
“Tour bus? How many of them are going?”
“Two passengers. One human, one… whatever. Will you do it?”
She looked into the immaculate condo living room, where her brother, Blake, and his husband, Jeff, were playing a noisy, fast-paced video game, oblivious to her conversation. She had promised to be at Blake’s concert tomorrow. It meant a lot to him. “Just a second,” she said to Frank.
“I can’t wait,” he said.
“Two seconds.” She muted the phone and walked into the living room. Blake saw her expression and paused the game.
She said, “Would you hate me if I couldn’t be there tomorrow?”
Disappointment, resignation, and wry acceptance crossed his face, as if he hadn’t ever really expected her to keep her promise. “What is it?” he asked.
“A job,” she said. “A really important job. Never mind, I’ll turn it down.”
“No, Ave, don’t worry. There will be other concerts.”
Still, she hesitated. “You sure?” she said. She and Blake had always hung together, like castaways on a hostile sea. They had given each other courage to sail into the wind. To disappoint him felt disloyal.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Now I’ll be sorry if you stay.”
She thumbed the phone on. “Okay, Frank, I’ll do it. This better not get me in trouble.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he said. “I’ll email you instructions. Bye.”
From the couch, Jeff said, “Now I know why you want to do it. Because it’s likely to get you in trouble.”
“No, he gave me his word,” Avery said.
“Cowboy Frank? The one who had you drive guns to Nicaragua?”
“That was perfectly legal,” Avery said.
Jeff had a point, as usual. Specialty Shipping did the jobs no reputable company would handle. Ergo, so did Avery.
“What is it this time?” Blake asked.
“I can’t say.” The email had come through; Frank had attached the instructions as if a PDF were more secure than email. She opened and scanned them.
The job had been cleared by the government, but the client was the alien passenger, and she was to take orders only from him, within the law. She scanned the rest of the instructions till she saw the pickup time. “Damn, I’ve got to get going,” she said.
Her brother followed her into the guest room to watch her pack up. He had never understood her nomadic lifestyle, which made his silent support for it all the more generous. She was compelled to wander; he was rooted in this home, this relationship, this warm, supportive community. She was a discarder, using things up and throwing them away; he had created a home that was a visual expression of himself—from the spare, Japanese-style furniture to the Zen colors on the walls. Visiting him was like living inside a beautiful soul. She had no idea how they could have grown up so different. It was as if they were foundlings.
She pulled on her boots and shouldered her backpack. Blake hugged her. “Have a good trip,” he said. “Call me.”
“Will do,” she said, and hit the road again.
The media had called the dome in Rock Creek Park the Mother Ship—but only because of its proximity to the White House, not because it was in any way distinctive. Like the others, it had appeared overnight, sited on a broad, grassy clearing that had been a secluded picnic ground in the urban park. It filled the entire creek valley, cutting off the trails and greatly inconveniencing the joggers and bikers.
Avery was unprepared for its scale. Like most people, she had seen the domes only on TV, and the small screen did not do justice to the neck-craning reality. She leaned forward over the wheel and peered out the windshield as she brought the bus to a halt at the last checkpoint. The National Park Police pickup that had escorted her through all the other checkpoints pulled aside.
The appearance of an alien habitat had set off a battle of jurisdictions in Washington. The dome stood on U.S. Park Service property, but D.C. Police controlled all the access streets, and the U.S. Army was tasked with maintaining a perimeter around it. No agency wanted to surrender a particle of authority to the others. And then there was the polite, well-groomed young man who had introduced himself as “Henry,” now sitting in the passenger seat next to her. His neatly pressed suit sported no bulges of weaponry, but she assumed he was CIA.
She now saw method in Frank’s madness at calling her so spur-of-the-moment. Her last-minute arrival had prevented anyone from pulling her aside into a cinderblock room for a “briefing.” Instead, Henry had accompanied her in the bus, chatting informally.
“Say, while you’re on the road…”
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“The alien’s my client. I don’t spy on clients.”
He paused a moment, but seemed unruffled. “Not even for your country?”
“If I think my country’s in danger, I’ll get in touch.”
“Fair enough,” he said pleasantly. She hadn’t expected him to give up so easily.
He handed her a business card. “So you can get in touch,” he said.