A Paradigm of Earth (33 page)
John stretched his feet out to the fender, wiggled his toes in the heat. “Genetics? Birth? Being part of the tribe?”
“But are any of us really part of the tribe? People are so different from each other.”
“No! That’s not the case at all. There are groups of people, it’s true, some better than others, but people are very much alike. We’re different from the animals.”
“What about the gorillas who sign and the dolphins who sing?”
“Animal-trainer tricks. We’re above that: we are special. There are no beings like us.”
“I do believe we are special in the Universe, John, but we
are
animals, and above and beyond that, we can’t say that we are alone or singular. Not any more. Not since the aliens. Whether they are shaped like Blue and therefore like us, or whether they simply made some human-like constructs to act as their contacts, still, they were
capable
of making them. They are something like us: they explore, they are curious—”
are
animals, and above and beyond that, we can’t say that we are alone or singular. Not any more. Not since the aliens. Whether they are shaped like Blue and therefore like us, or whether they simply made some human-like constructs to act as their contacts, still, they were
capable
of making them. They are something like us: they explore, they are curious—”
“Or the whole thing is a fake. That’s what Jakob thought.”
“That’s what Jakob used to think … I mean, Jakob changed his mind after he dreamed Blue.”
“After he
what?”
what?”
“After he slept with Blue.”
“The fancies that we get during sex are notoriously unreliable. We imagine we know people, trust people, have transcended something. It’s all just a fantasy of our nerve endings.”
“Sometimes, maybe. But that dreaming process isn’t sex. It’s something else.”
“But they did have sex, probably. That was such a stupid thing for Jakob to do. How did he know what diseases the alien has, how could he … ? It’s like bestiality.”
“Even if they did, Blue is not a beast. Unless you think we all are, in which case all sex is bestiality.”
John looked shocked.
“It’s a joke, Johnny.”
“Oh. Well, it’s not far wrong, is it? Especially to someone like Jakob. Someone who is used to deviant sex.”
“John, we’ve been through this before. Homosex isn’t deviant, it’s just less common than heterosex.”
“Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean. Someone who’s used to going outside the boundaries one way will do it another way, will experiment, will try anything.”
“Anything?” Morgan couldn’t imagine John really believed that, but she saw that he seemed to. “Jakob was very vanilla, really, for a fag,” she said. “He wasn’t interested in experimentation. In some ways, he wasn’t interested in sex very much at all, I think, compared with intimacy. But when he was, it was pretty sedate.”
“Sedate?”
“Yeah. Just regular stuff, no weirdness. The hardest thing he ever did was get naked with Blue. And that was just, as I said, intimacy.”
“Well, better him than me, that’s for sure.”
“Ah, John, you’re such a neocon. You know, when we were young, the culture was one of openness. These prejudices you embrace: we worked very hard to erase such things.”
“Hey, I work at tolerance!”
“No, tolerance is one thing, not being prejudiced at all is another. I don’t envy your generation at all.”
“Hey, I’m not that much younger than you.”
“Yes, you are. These days, even three or four years defines a generation, and you must be at least a dozen years younger.”
“Not according to my birth certificate,” he said, and chuckled, looking not at Morgan but at the fire. The effect was of the same secretive amusement she had seen before, condescending and a bit off-putting.
Of all the people in the house, she thought, I work hardest with this one, and yet know least—and perhaps don’t even like this one, though there is a strange charm in that exuberant egotism.
And the documentary rough-cuts she had seen were good, were excellent, even if the angles seemed a bit—snaky, somehow.
Of all the people in the house, she thought, I work hardest with this one, and yet know least—and perhaps don’t even like this one, though there is a strange charm in that exuberant egotism.
And the documentary rough-cuts she had seen were good, were excellent, even if the angles seemed a bit—snaky, somehow.
“Ah, Johnny,” she said, “who are you?” and was surprised when he started out of his reverie with hostility and said, savagely and automatically, “None of your business!”
“Hey!” she said. “Calm yourself! This is me, Morgan here. No threat.”
“Yeah, sorry, I was thinking of something else,” he said, awkwardly. “Look, I have to go work. The last few days … well, with all the fuss, I really haven’t got anything done at all.” And he left her there, wondering why a simple joke had made him so touchy. Touchier than usual, for she realized they had all gotten used to how difficult he really could be.
He is not a very nice person
, she thought, and then snorted at her prissy interior tone. But he wasn’t.
, she thought, and then snorted at her prissy interior tone. But he wasn’t.
Andris made one of his rare visits to the grey man’s office the day after Salomé started working on the recordings.
“Any results on the tapes?”
“They’re not tape any more, boss,” said Mr. Grey. “I keep telling you that.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” said Andris. “Look at this.”
In the center of the small stack of files he was holding was a red Eyes-Only folder. Out of it he took a document and tossed it to Mac. The grey man picked it up to find that it was in Chinese. “What’s this?”
“It cost us a good deal, and then the guy who got it for us vanished. We think for good.”
“Don’t be cute, boss. What is it?”
“It’s an autopsy report,” said Andris. “On China’s alien.”
“It’s a fine day,” said the grey man. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“It’s raining,” said Morgan.
“It’s good for you,” he said. They strode out along the park and down the path into the valley. The grey man had an inadequate plastic rain poncho which snapped noisily in the wind, and Blue was wearing a bizarre fisherman’s slicker borrowed from Russ, which crackled and swished as Blue walked. “I need to ask you,” he said to Blue, “if you are able to listen to any of the other Visitors.”
“To the house?”
“To earth. Visitors like you.”
“What do you mean, listen?” Morgan said.
“You both know exactly what I mean. I’m cold and wet and I don’t have a lot of time. Can you hear them?”
“No,” said Blue. “Well, sort of. Maybe. Yes.”
“Which is it?”
“There is a whisper. It sounds different than the city whisper. It is very far away. Things disrupt it. I don’t know, solar flares or Tesla rays or something.”
“Look, don’t joke around with me. This is important. Could you tell if they were all still there?”
“I don’t think … I haven’t …” Blue stopped and was silent for a moment. The grey man put a hand on Morgan’s sleeve to keep her quiet, but Morgan knew that expression. “Maybe … one is gone. Two. Two are gone. One is … very sick.”
“Gone?”
“Dead,” said the alien.
“What happened?” said Morgan.
“Even if I knew, I probably couldn’t tell you,” said the grey man. “We’ll see if we can do anything for the sick one, but I doubt it. I’m sorry, Blue.”
The rest of the walk was silent. When they got back to the house Blue went upstairs and Morgan made the grey man a quick cup of tea to warm him. He drank it standing up, then said, “Sorry, I have to go back to work.” Morgan walked him out through the hall.
Blue caught up to them at the door and said diffidently, “I have made something. Can I show you?”
Morgan and the grey man, who seemed startled to be included, nodded, and Blue led the way back into the house and up to Jakob’s studio. The police seal hung broken from the door: the forensics team had pronounced that they were done with it the afternoon before, so Morgan ignored the grey man’s sigh.
Blue set the lights and pulled the blackout curtains. “I think I have just learned what ‘shy’ is,” Blue said hesitantly. “Everything worries me now. I have made—a dance?”
“Show us,” said Morgan gently.
“I have not been working on it very long,” said Blue. “Jakob worked longer. Maybe it is not very good.”
“Don’t worry. Just show us.”
Blue began with an imitation of
Night Through Slow Glass.
A perfect imitation. Or maybe not. As it went on Morgan began to see that the tension Jakob had wound into the piece was being unwound, strand by strand, into an ever-increasing dissonance. Entropy was taking over. By the end of the piece, what would have been the end, it had almost completely unraveled—and then, at the point where the choir music stopped, and the dance Jakob had danced had dissolved into silence and chaos, Blue hovered for a moment in the final pose, then exploded into a wild storm of what could only be grief: a howl, a fury, an outcry of loss. In total, eerie, telling silence—and perfect motion.
Night Through Slow Glass.
A perfect imitation. Or maybe not. As it went on Morgan began to see that the tension Jakob had wound into the piece was being unwound, strand by strand, into an ever-increasing dissonance. Entropy was taking over. By the end of the piece, what would have been the end, it had almost completely unraveled—and then, at the point where the choir music stopped, and the dance Jakob had danced had dissolved into silence and chaos, Blue hovered for a moment in the final pose, then exploded into a wild storm of what could only be grief: a howl, a fury, an outcry of loss. In total, eerie, telling silence—and perfect motion.
Then stood, panting slightly, looking at Morgan and Mr. Grey.
“Did you understand?” said the alien.
Morgan nodded, and to her shock, Mr. Grey simply opened his arms wide. Blue came into them, and bowed the tangled head against the grey man’s. Blue was taller, and graceful as a willow against Grey’s slight, suit-clad frame.
“I miss Jakob,” said Blue finally.
“We all do,” said the grey man.
The attendance at the memorial service was going to be huge. Not only because Jakob had been far better known than any of them thought, but because the media knew he had lived in the house with the alien, and videorazzi and spectators alike hoped to catch a glimpse of Blue.
The team considered pinkface and even worked up a credible imitation of Aziz. “I am Aziz’s brother,” said Blue wryly, looking at the results in the mirror, and Aziz, who was there to watch, blushed as they all chuckled.
But Blue turned away from the mirror troubled. “Excuse me, but I do not want to go in disguise,” the alien said slowly. “I am thinking of this. Jakob was my friend. Morgan has explained this event to me and it does not seem right that I sneak into his memorial. It would be like telling a big lie. Also, I made a dance, and I am thinking it would have been something Jakob liked. So I am wondering. Could I go as myself and dance my requiem?”
Kowalski, mute for once, looked at Mr. Grey. The grey man looked at Morgan silently and, it seemed to her, nonplussed for the first time.
Finally he said, “I will ask.”
“Andris,” he said, “scramble,” and when the encryption kicked in, the grey man went on, “Do we have the authority for a head-of-state operation?”
“Why?” Andris’s voice sounded artificial after its journey through encription. “Oh, I see, Bryant is just putting the transcript in front of me now. ‘Teach me, O Lord, to be sweet and gentle in all the events of life.’”
“Sir?”
“Something my mother used to say. Look, I will call the Prime Minister’s office. Wait where you are. I’ll get back to you.”
The grey man went back to the alien’s room, where Ko and Lemieux and Morgan and Blue were making up Morgan as an alien. The blue set off her raven hair and all she needed was a blue rinse to make her a pair with Blue. The grey man sighed silently.
“We wait,” he said. “What does that stuff feel like?”
“Come and we’ll show you,” said Lemieux, so that in the surprisingly short time if took for Grey’s cellphone to ring again, he was transformed into a small, neat, greyhaired alien. “It’s comfortable,” he said, surprised, just as the ’phone rang.
On the other end of the line, Andris’s tinny, pixelated encrypted voice said, “We have a royal-wedding scenario. Or head-of-state funeral. Whatever. I would like you to know that the Prime Minister thinks this is the cat’s meow as a propaganda opportunity. We’ll be lucky if she isn’t issuing front-row seats to the news anchor teams by this time tomorrow. You are in charge. Enjoy.” He hung up.
The grey man turned to his colleagues. “We’re on,” he said. He glimpsed himself in the mirror. There were three aliens among the pinkfaced people. He sighed again. He hated it when the world presented him with obvious metaphors. He reached up and began to tear the blueface off. “You can dance,” he said to Blue. “We’ll protect you. Ko, we have security to arrange. This stuff is sticky. Lemieux, put ten of your people in blueface. We’ll do a decoy shell game.”
Blue was silent. When the others went out, the alien said to Morgan, “Now I am apprehensive. All those people will do all the work to get me there, and there will be so many watching, and what if I dance wrong?”
“Jakob faced that every time he danced, honey,” said Morgan. “Welcome to the human race.”
“You keep saying that,” said Blue irritably, “but where else have I been?” and went up to the studio to practice.
Delany wheeled past just as Blue disappeared up the stairs, watched by Morgan leaning on the doorframe of the alien’s room, still blue of face and hands. “What’s up, girlfriend? Why are you so blue?”
Morgan snorted. “Very cute. Blue’s dancing, all blue and natural, at Jakob’s memorial. My grey man has just taken all his people off to organize it as an affair of state.” Morgan, worried, looked at Delany, worried, and they both began to giggle.
“Did you ever think your life would be like this?” Delany said, hiccoughing.
Other books
Heart & Seoul by Victoria Smith
Remedy Maker by Sheri Fredricks
Emerald (Steele Investigations) by Millstead, Kasey
Steel Walls and Dirt Drops by Black, Alan
One Went to Denver and the Other Went Wrong (Code of the West) by Bly, Stephen
Ginny Gall by Charlie Smith
Beastly Beautiful by Dara England
The Moon and the Stars by Constance O'Banyon
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Craig Deitschmann
Out of Place Mate by Rebecca Royce
