“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to confiscate this. Obviously you’re not familiar with the laws that prohibit the importation of weapons to Earth. I’ll give you a receipt and you can claim your property upon departure.” He snapped the beautiful case shut.
“Now, just a minute …” The owner leaned forward.
A pair of security robotics popped out of the floor on either side of the customs clerk. Each had four arms pointed at the man, each equipped with a different type of restraining device. The other man gripped his friend by the shoulder and pulled him back.
“Let it go. We’ll manage without.”
“But …”
“I said we’ll manage without.” He smiled at the clerk. “Sorry. My friend’s kind of excitable. He just didn’t know. We don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” The clerk’s smile had not faded. “Are you bringing in any fruits, vegetables, or animal products?”
The man jammed his hands in his pockets and snarled. “No!”
“That’s all, then. You’re free to move along. Enjoy your stay on Old Earth.”
He watched them go, the man with his hands in his pockets shuffling along head-down, his companion haranguing him unmercifully. The clerk sighed and nodded to the security robot on his left.
“Tag this one and put it with the others.” The robot signaled assent, stamped the heavy case with a time, date, and description seal, and lifted it easily. Pivoting, it trundled into a back storeroom and deposited the disassembled device atop the growing armory of off-world weapons.
The clerk sighed. Earth might be something of a lazy backwater, but that didn’t mean its permanent inhabitants were stupid. Personally he would be glad when the matter of the giant mystery vessel was resolved. Then all these spies and assassins would reclaim their onerous hardware and go home.
He smiled and greeted the next in line, a disputatious family of four from Bums III. They had no ravening weaponry to declare, unless one included the father’s ignominious and apparently uncontrollable belching.
They streamed to Earth: analysts from Judeastan, researchers from Provence IV, highly trained operatives from the FFF, efficient observers from Ronin and Nikko V, all of them converging on Baltimore, so that an ordinary traveler couldn’t find a good hotel room for all the suspicious, maladroit antagonists. These booked no tours to Manhattan or Deecee parks, signed up for none of the nature walks in the Appalachians, reserved no evening dinner cruises up the Potomac. They did not crowd the beaches or the woodlands.
Instead they tied up orbital communications and sought ways, any ways at all, to penetrate the secrets of the massive vessel of unknown origin which continued to hover over the Atlantic not far south of the Bermuda islands.
XII
Immutable in its Blueness, inscrutable of purpose, the Autothor floated a meter above the unblemished floor. “I continue to await direction.”
“You should pardon my asking, but what difference would it make?” Gelmann eyed the azure ellipse. “You seem to do a pretty good job of running things all by yourself.”
“Mina.” Follingston-Heath eyed her warningly.
She ignored him. “No, I mean it. You seem competent and in control of what’s going on. Why don’t you take us back to where we came from and go off and do whatever it is you have to do?”
“Well, that’s a large part of my problem. You see, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what my function is beyond post-hiatal activation. That’s why I’m hoping for someone to tell me. And since you’re the only ones around …” It didn’t have to complete the thought.
“I understand,” she said sympathetically. “You’re confused.”
“You got it,” the Autothor replied with as much cybernetic dignity as it could muster.
“You can’t be confused.” Ksarusix was having a difficult time resolving what it observed with what it heard. “You represent a much higher intelligence.”
“Why is this mechanical constantly badgering me?” the Autothor inquired politely.
“It’s just curious,” said Shimoda. “Pay it no mind.” The serving robot let out a strangled squeal of frustration and rolled away to squat by itself, morosely contemplating the view of the Atlantic outside the arching transparent panel.
“My memory is incomplete,” the blue ellipse continued. “There is much yet to be reintegrated. Even though you are only organics. I’m sure you can appreciate that over a million years, things can be forgotten.”
“I know.” Gelmann was ever empathetic. “Last week I put my old red dress on backward. Was I embarrassed.”
“Not only a giant alien ship,” Hawkins muttered, “but an adolescent giant alien ship.”
“How about something to eat?” Shimoda smiled blandly at the muddled technological miracle.
“Of course.” The Autothor was relieved to have a request it could readily comply with.
“Let’s have some more of that red fruit juice you whipped up last time,” Shimoda added. “None of that gelatinous green stuff. And make sure it arrives hot this time. The last meal was kind of tepid.”
“Certainly.”
Ten minutes later the food platform arrived at its usual breathless pace. The synthesized spread boasted an artistic prime-rib replica as well as seafood and specific vegetables. Tastes and consistency were dead-on, but some of the peripherals were a bit off. The baked potatoes, for example, were bright purple, and the English peas the size of cantaloupes. Follingston-Heath carved the prime rib while Shimoda took it upon himself to slice one of the peas.
If nothing else, it was a considerable improvement over the first synthetics the Autothor had provided. With practice and help from Ksarusix its food service would undoubtedly improve.
Shimoda tried the imitation prime rib, pronounced it excellent.
“Sure,” said Hawkins, “but when you’re hungry you’d eat a dead moose that had been two weeks decomposing in the forest.”
“I don’t see you refusing anything,” the elderly sumo aficionado replied accusingly.
Hawkins dug into a hunk of pea. “A man’s got to eat.”
Afterward they debated how to proceed.
