“What do you expect me to do? Be grateful? I’m a writer, dammit! They’ll take me home and venerate me. I’ll become an honored exhibit. Supplicants will badger me in hopes of obtaining original creations. I’ll have no peace, least of all in my own mind. Once the spigot is turned on, there’s no shutting it off. Some of our philosophers believe the creative energy lingers even after extermination. There is a formula for it.”
“You think you’ve got problems?” Ross Ed toyed with a bowlful of blue paste. “When I go home I’ve got to find a way to gel the army off my back. Talk about being badgered and bothered! Then there’s that Hollywood woman and her friends. I’m sure they’re looking for me, too. And there’ll be others.”
It was quiet in the room for a long time. At last Jed asked, “Is there nowhere you could be comfortable and free of harassment, noplace else on your world that you would like to experience? Someplace similar, perhaps, to your beloved Texas?”
“There is one place that might work. Just one. I’ve heard a lot about it.”
“Then tell me, and I will see that it is arranged.”
“That’s mighty fine of you, Jed. A change of scenery might do me a world of good. I just don’t want to change to a whole new world. Who knows? It might even help me to forget about Caroline.”
“Take it from me, my friend. She wasn’t right for you
Ross snorted. “As if a dead alien knew what kind of woman was right for me.”
“Don’t underestimate me just because I’m a dead member of another species. I’m very perceptive, as you know. Now, if you will provide me with your chosen coordinates I shall see to it that the commander is properly informed.”
Ross Ed rolled his eyes. “Coordinates again! How’s about I just use another one of those slick map globes. If the Culakhan had ’em I’m sure your people do, too.”
“Complete with full relief, moving cloud patterns, and circulating ocean currents,” Jed assured him. “Look at the wall behind you. There is a series of small depression …”
When Ross had finished isolating and describing his chosen locale, the deceased Enlightenment pondered the result thoughtfully.
“I perceive that this locale is even bigger than your Texas.”
“Yeah,” Ross Ed conceded grudgingly. “Not many places are.”
“You’re certain you will be comfortable there?”
“Hey, nothing’s certain. One time I thought I’d be comfortable in Snyder, until a tornado ripped through town and scattered everything I owned between Abilene and Austin.” He fingered the slowly rotating globe, his hand wholly encompassing the region he’d isolated.
“I heard the folks hereabouts are a lot like Texans, and the country itself is damn interesting. One thing’s for sure: I don’t think U.S. Army Intelligence is going to look for me there. Not for a while, anyways.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the deceased Enlightenment assured him.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was with considerable fanfare that Ross Ed found himself placed early the next morning in a small, automatically piloted vehicle that had been programmed to deliver him safely to the site he had chosen. Directions had been installed in the craft by the Enlightenment himself, operating in tandem with the flagship’s systemology and utilizing the remarkable capabilities of his survival suit. The tiny craft could be dropped from the camouflaged scientific survey ship during its first orbit of Earth.
As he lay prone in the harness which was designed to support three Shakaleeshva but which had been modified to accommodate his single, far larger human frame, Ross contemplated what had been a most remarkable relationship. He was going to miss Jed. Certainly the Enlightenment was the most interesting dead person he’d ever known, even if he wasn’t human.
It was a good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic, because the drop craft was only a little bigger than a single-engined plane. His shoulders barely fit the confines of the life-support compartment.
Something clicked softly and he was suddenly falling, the tiny vessel hcing much too small to support any kind of artificial gravity. For several minutes he was afraid he was going to spew partially digested blue paste all over the interior, but as the craft entered the earth’s atmosphere and gravity resumed, so did control of his stomach.
Considering the size of his vehicle and the velocity at which it was descending, it was just as well that there were no ports or windows. He had to rely entirely on the Shakaleeshva, though even if he could see where he was going he couldn’t affect the outcome. If he slammed into an ocean there wasn’t much he’d be able to do.
The feeling of falling at great speed lessened. There was a bump, then another, and then all sense of motion ceased. Hidden servos whined and the top of the little vessel slid back. Moist, thick air filled his nostrils, then his lungs. It stank of green growing things.
A single touch released the restraining harness, allowing him to sit up. The ship rested on damp soil, surrounded by tall trees and stately palms. Strange bird sounds fluted the air. An iridescent blue butterfly the size of his palm investigated his face before moving on. It was rain forest, but very unlike the Yucatán. The trees and palms were too widely spaced, the undergrowth utterly different. No monkeys gibbered in the canopy, and while plentiful, the local insect life seemed less aggressive.
Climbing out, he was careful to step over a line of green ants traveling single file. As he bent to inspect an indifferent pair of bright green golden-eyed tree frogs squatting on a nearby log, a panel popped open in the drop ship’s side.
Gliding out under its own power was a singular figure. The survival suit was of different design; a little sleeker, a touch more elaborately instrumented. No doubt it was some of the latter which granted the unit mobility. As it inclined to the vertical he got his first look at the contents.
Three eyes shut tight, arms and legs hanging limply, Jed the dead could not stare back at him. But he could perceive, and he could talk. Somehow the artificially reproduced voice succeeded in conveying amused delight.
“Hello, Ross Ed.”
“Jed!” Ross would have enveloped the alien in a true Texas bear hug, except he feared damaging the suit’s external instrumentation. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was not designated the Enlightenment because of a paucity of imagination. Even deceased, I like to think I’m a little smarter and a little cleverer than the majority of the living.”
“That sounds like a writer, all right.” Shaking his head and grinning, Ross Ed chose an antless log and sat down. “How’d you pull it off?”
“While everyone else was busy attending to your needs, I was attending to mine. I had been offered a new survival suit immediately after our arrival on board the flagship. I accepted, but put off making the transfer until last night. Once broadcast neuromuscular facility had been regained, it was a relatively simple matter for me to program not one, but two of these marvelous little craft. My old survival suit, together with my personal signature, was on my instruction loaded aboard the duplicate vessel. None of the scientists aboard the survey ship which dropped us here paid it any mind, assuming it to be pan of someone else’s experiment.
“Similarly, I was able to maneuver myself when no one was looking into the modest cargo bay of your craft long before you were loaded. My only fear was that I would be discovered during the ceremony of departure. But only the life-support bay was checked, to ensure your comfort. I, of course, was perfectly content in the cargo compartment, since I carry my own survival system with me.
“When this craft was released, so was its mate. Instrumentation on board the survey vessel will record the event as a single drop signature. Adjustments I performed to camouflage instructions will have hidden our craft not only from your kind’s primitive detection devices but also from my own.”
“They’ll still come looking for you,” Ross Ed warned.
“And they’ll find me, by tracing the drop signature. Or at lea.st, they’ll find my old survival suit. Then they really will be confused. They won’t know whether I’ve gone to ground on this world or simply shot myself out into space, where, if nothing else, there can be found eternal peace. No trace of my manipulations remains aboard either the survey vessel or the flagship. I made certain of that before I put my little enterprise into effect. “Your world is large, crowded, and off-limits to general exploration. This time I won’t be found.”
“No? What if they come looking for me, to ask me questions?”
“My dear aborigine, did you think I ever gave them the coordinates you selected for me? If they come looking for you at all they will have to find a way to search a large metropolitan complex halfway around the world. The Culakhan, should they return, will have an even more difficult time. I don’t think anyone will try it. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You and I are here, not there.”
