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rigid in one direction" he pushed with his finger toward the Guest's head,
producing no movement "but flexible in another." He pressed down and the cage
sank slightly. "There is an obvious similarity between the Guest and ourselves
at this point, with a protective cage around the thorax, but the similarity
ends there."
Phan took a small electric circular saw and cut through the processes on the
Guest's left side, facing the window. Working the saw twenty centimeters
across the top, then down on two sides another twenty centimeters, then across
the bottom, he was able to lift free a glutinous section of the thoracic cage.
Below lay a pearly membrane.
Arthur sat rooted in his chair, fully focused on the opening to the Guest's
thorax. Phan maneuvered past Feinman and the assistants around the table,
pausing for a moment to glance at the printouts. He then reached for a syringe
and inserted it into the pearly membrane, withdrawing a sample of fluids.
Harry pushed a slender biopsy core sampler through the membrane a little lower
and removed a long, slender tube of tissue.
This he passed to an assistant, who sealed it in a glass phial and passed it
with the other samples to the outside through a stainless-steel drawer.
"The temperature is now twelve degrees centigrade. We are reducing that to
several degrees above zero, to inhibit terrestrial bacterial growth. The core
and fluid samples will be analyzed and the autopsy will continue at a later
hour. Gentlemen, it is time I rested. My assistants are going to make further
measurements and take core samples from the limbs. Later this morning we will
begin on the head."
Hicks sat at the table across from the President, smiling at the waitress as
she poured him a cup of coffee. They were alone in the dining hall; it was
early, just past seven in the morning. The President had called him at
midnight and requested his presence at breakfast for a private discussion.
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"What's your pleasure, Mr. Hicks?" Crocker-man asked him.
"Toast and scrambled eggs, I think," he said. "Can you make a Denver omelet?"
The waitress nodded.
"The same for me," Crockerman told her. As she left, Crockerman pushed his
chair back a few inches and bent to pull papers from an open valise beside
him. "I'll be meeting with a distraught mother at nine o'clock, and with an
admiral and a general at eleven. Then I fly back to Washington. I've been
making notes all night long, trying to put my thoughts in order. I hope you
don't object to my bouncing a few ideas off you."
"Not at all," Hicks said. "But first, I must make my situation clear. I'm a
journalist. I came here for a story.
All this your request that I stay here, instead of being booted out with the
others is...well, it's extraordinary. I must honestly say that under the
circumstances, I..." He ran out of words, looking into Crockerman's rich brown
eyes. Lifting his hand, he gestured vaguely at the door of the dining room.
"I'm not trusted here, nor should I be. I'm an outsider."
"You're a man with imagination and insight," Crockerman said. "The others have
expertise. Mr. Gordon and Mr. Feinman have imagination and expertise, and Mr.
Gordon has been very close to this kind of problem, as administrator of BETC.
Perhaps he's been too close, I don't know. I've been wondering whether or not
we're dealing with extraterrestrials, as he would have us believe. You have a
distance, a fresh perspective I could find very useful."
"What is my official capacity, my role?" Hicks asked.
"Obviously, you can't report this story now," Crocker-man said. "Stay here,
work with us until the story is about to be released. I suspect we'll have to
go public soon, though Carl and David strongly disagree. If we do go public,
you have your exclusive. You get first crack."
Hicks frowned. "And our conversations?"
"For the time being, what we say to each other is not to be discussed
elsewhere. In the fullness of history, in our memoirs or
whatever..."Crockerman nodded to the far walls. "Fine."
"I'd like some more details," Hicks said, "especially if Mr. Rotterjack and
Mr. McClennan or Mr. Lehrman have control over me or my story. But for the
time being, I'll agree. I will not report what we say to each other
privately."
Crockerman put the papers on the table in front of him. "Now, here are my
thoughts. Either we've been invaded twice in the last year, or somebody is
lying to us."
"The choice seems to be between doom and a hands across space policy," Hicks
said.
The President nodded agreement. "I've made some logic diagrams." He held up
the first sheet of paper. "Venn diagrams. Scant remnants of my college math
days." He smiled. "Nothing complicated, just drawings to help me sort the
possibilities out. I'd appreciate your criticisms."
"All right." Hicks glanced at the piece of paper before the President. Brief
notations of possible scenarios lay within nested and intersecting and
separated circles.
"If these two spacecraft have similar origins, I see several possibilities.
First, the Australians are dealing with a splinter group of extraterrestrials,
some kind of dissident faction. But our information is correct, and the
primary aim of the overall mission is to destroy the Earth, and the Guest does
indeed represent survivors of their last conquest. With me so far?"
"Yes."
"Second," the President continued, "we are dealing with two separate events,
which by some literally astronomical chance are happening simultaneously. Two
groups of aliens, unacquainted or only marginally acquainted with each other.
Or third, we are not dealing with aliens at all, but with emissaries."
Hicks raised an eyebrow. "Emissaries?"
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