Arthur felt his throat catching. Crockerman’s cheek was wet with a single tear. He did not wipe it away.
“Did they tell you why your world was being destroyed?”
“They did not speak with us,” the Guest said. “We guessed the machines were eaters of worlds, and that they were not alive, just machines without smells, but with thoughts.”
“No robots came out to speak with you?”
“I have language difficulties.”
“Smaller machines,” Rotterjack prompted. “Talk with you, deceive you.”
“No smaller machines,” the Guest said.
Crockerman took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “Did you have children?” he asked.
“My kind were not allowed children. I had cousins.”
“Did you leave some sort of family behind?”
“Yes. Cousins and teachers. Ice brothers by command bonding.”
Crockerman shook his head. That meant nothing to him; indeed, it meant little to anybody in the room. Much of this would have to be sorted out later, with many more questions: — if the Guest lived long enough to answer all their questions.
“And you learned to speak our language by listening to radio broadcasts?”
“Yes. Your wasting drew the machines to you. We listened to what the machines were gathering.”
Harry scribbled furiously, his pencil making quick scratching noises on the notepad.
“Why didn’t you try to sabotage the machine — destroy it?” Rotterjack asked.
“Had we been able to do that, the machine would never have allowed us on board.”
“Arrogance,” Arthur said, his jaw tightening. “Incredible arrogance.”
“You’ve told us you were asleep, hibernating,” Rotterjack said. “How could you study our language and sleep at the same time?”
The Guest stood motionless, not answering. “It is done,” it finally replied.
“How many languages do you know?” Harry asked, pencil poised.
“I am speaker of English. Others, still within, speak Russian, Chinese, French.”
“These questions don’t seem terribly important,” Crockerman said quietly. “I feel as if a nightmare has come over us all. Who can I blame for this?” He glanced around the room, his eyes sharp, hawklike. “Nobody. I can’t simply announce we have visitors from other worlds, because people will want to see the visitors. After the Australian release, what we have here can only demoralize and confuse.”
“I’m not sure how long we can keep this a secret,” McClennan said.
“How can we hold this back from our people?” Crockerman seemed not to have heard anybody but the Guest. He stood and approached the glass, grimly concentrating on the Guest. “You’ve brought us the worst possible news. You say there’s nothing we can do. Your…civilization…must have been more advanced than ours. It died. This is a terrible message to bring. Why did you bother at all?”
“On some worlds, the contest might have been more equal,” the Guest said. “I am tired. I do not have much more time.”
General Fulton spoke in an undertone with McClennan and Rotterjack. Rotterjack approached the President and put a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. President, we are not the experts here. We can’t ask the right questions, and clearly there isn’t much time remaining. We should get out of the way and let the scientists do their work.”
Crockerman nodded, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he seemed more composed. “Gentlemen, David is correct. Please get on with it. I’d like to speak to all of you before we go out to the site. Just one last question.” He turned back to the Guest. “Do you believe in God?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Guest replied, “We believe in punishment.”
Crockerman was visibly shaken. Mouth open slightly, he glanced at Harry and Arthur, then left the room on trembling legs, with McClennan, Rotterjack, and General Fulton following.
“What do you mean by that?” Harry asked after the door had closed. “Please expand on what you just said.”
“Detail is unimportant,” the Guest said. “The death of a world is judgment of its inadequacy. Death removes the unnecessary and the false. No more talk now. Rest.”
11
Bad news. Bad news.
Edward awoke from his dreaming doze and blinked at the off-white ceiling. He felt as if somebody very important to him had died. It took him a moment to orient to reality.
He had had a dream he couldn’t remember clearly now. His mind shuffled palm leaves over the sand to hide the tracks of the subconscious at play.
The duty officer had told them an hour before that nobody was sick, and no biologicals had been discovered in their blood or anywhere else. Not even on the Guest, which seemed as pure as the driven snow. Odd, that.
In any ecology Edward Shaw had heard of, which meant any Earth ecology, living things were always accompanied by parasitic or symbiotic organisms. On the skin, in the gut, within the bloodstream. Perhaps ecologies differed on other worlds. Perhaps the Guest’s people — wherever they came from — had advanced to the point of purity: only the primaries, the smart folks, left alive; no more little mutating beasties to cause illness.
Edward sat up and drew himself a glass of water from the lavatory sink. As he sipped, his eyes wandered to the window and the curtain beyond. Slowly but surely, he was losing the old Edward Shaw, and finding a new one: an ambiguous fellow, angry but not overtly so, afraid but not showing his fear, deeply pessimistic.
And then he remembered his dream.
He had been at his own funeral. The casket had been open and somebody had made a mistake, because within the box was the Guest. The minister, presiding in a purple robe with a huge medallion on his chest, had touched Edward on the shoulder and whispered into his ear,”This is Bad News indeed, don’t you think?”
He had never had dreams like that before.
The intercom signaled and he shouted,”No! Go away. I’m fine. Just go away. I’m not sick. I’m not dying.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Shaw.” It was Eunice, the slender black duty officer who seemed most sympathetic to Edward. “You go ahead and let it out if you want. I can’t shut off the tapes, but I’ll shut down my speaker for a while if you wish.”
Edward sobered immediately. “I’m all right, Eunice. Really. Just need to know when we’re going to get out of here.”
“I don’t know that myself, Mr. Shaw.”
“Right. I don’t blame you.” And he didn’t. Not Eunice, not the other duty officers, not the doctors or the scientists who had spoken to him. Not even Harry Feinman or Arthur Gordon. The tears were turning to laughter he could barely suppress.
“Still all right, Mr. Shaw?” Eunice asked.
“I’m a victim of coicumstance,’” Edward quoted Curly, the plump and shave-pated member of the Three Stooges. He punched the intercom button for Minelli’s room. When Minelli answered, Edward imitated Curly again, and Minelli did a perfect ”Whoop hoop ooop.” Reslaw joined in, and Stella laughed, until they sounded like a laboratory full of chimpanzees. And that was what they became, chittering and eeking and stomping the floor. “Hey, I’m scratching my armpits,” Minelli said. “I really am. Eunice will vouch for me. Maybe we can get the sympathy of Friends of the Animals or something.”
“Friends of Geologists,” Reslaw said.
“Friends of Liberal Businesswomen,” Stella added.
“Come on, you guys,” Eunice said.
At eight o’clock in the evening, Edward glanced at his face in the shaving mirror over the sink. “Here comes the Prez,” he murmured. “I won’t even vote for the man, but I’m primping like a schoolgirl.” They wouldn’t be shaking hands. Yet the President would look in upon Shaw and Minelli and Reslaw and Morgan, would see them — and that was enough. Edward smiled grimly, then checked his teeth for food specks.