“Yes, Carl,” Crockerman replied, eyes half lidded. “I believe I do.”

“Sorry,” McClennan said, slumping slightly in his seat. French, still standing, seemed acutely embarrassed.

“All right,” Forbes said, gesturing with an elegant flip of his finger for French to be seated. “We confront our bogeys. We’d better get on with it. I invite as many of your people as you can spare to return with us. And I think I’ll recommend to Quentin that we start shutting the doors again. Fewer press reports. Does this seem reasonable?”

“Eminently,” Rotterjack said.

“I’m curious as to why Mr. Hicks is here,” Forbes said. “I admire Trevor’s work enormously, but…” He didn’t finish his thought. Arthur looked at Hicks, and realized he genuinely liked and trusted the man. He could understand the President’s choice. But that would cut no ice with McClennan and Rotterjack, who clearly wanted Hicks away from the center.

“He’s here because he’s as conversant on these subjects as anybody in the world,” Crockerman said. “Even though we do not see eye to eye.”

Rotterjack ineffectively masked his surprise, sitting up in his chair and then awkwardly leaning his elbow on the arm. Arthur watched him closely. They thought Hicks might be behind the President’s attitude.

“I’m glad Trevor’s here,” Arthur said abruptly. “I welcome his insights.”

“Fine with me,” Forbes said, smiling broadly.

The New York Daily News, October 12, 1996: Sources in the State Department, on condition that they not be named, have confirmed that there is a connection between the disappearance and alleged government captivity of four people and the secret visit by President Crockerman to Death Valley earlier this week. Other informed sources have confirmed that both of these incidents are connected with the Australian extraterrestrials. In a related story, the Reverend Kyle McCabey of Edinburgh, Scotland, founder of the Satanic Invader’s League, claims that his new religious sect now numbers its followers at a hundred thousand throughout the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. The Satanic Invader’s League believes that the Australian extraterrestrials are representatives of Satan sent to the Earth to, in the Reverend’s words, “soften us up for Satan’s conquest.”

On the Hollywood Freeway, neck and back stiff from the early morning flight into LAX, Arthur Gordon grimly steered the rental Lincoln, listening to a babble about national lottery results on the radio.

His mind was far away, and visions of the river outside his Oregon home kept intruding into his planning. Smooth, clear green water, steady and unaware, working its natural way, eroding banks. How did each particle of dirt stripped from its place feel about the process? How did the gazelle, caught in the slash of a lion’s paws, feel about becoming a simple dinner, all its existence reduced to a week or so of sustenance for another creature? “Waste,” he said. “Goddamn waste.” Yet he wasn’t sure what he meant, or what all his thoughts were pointing to.

Cat’s paws. Playing with the prey.

Suddenly, Arthur missed Francine and Marty terribly. He had spoken with them briefly from Washington before leaving; he had told them very little, not even where he was or where he was going.

Did a gazelle, caught in the meshing gears of a lion’s paws, worry about doe and fawn?

Harry’s home was a spacious split-level “stick-built” ranch house from the early 1960s, wandering over much of a eucalyptus-covered quarter-acre lot in Tarzana. He had purchased the home in 1975, before his marriage to Ithaca; it had seemed hollow then, with only one occupant, and was still a place of vast white walls and rug-dotted linoleum floors, a little chilly and severe for Arthur’s taste.

Ithaca beyond any doubt ruled the roost. Tall, with dark red hair and features more suited to a Shakespearean actress than a Tarzana homemaker, her quiet presence balanced the broad rooms. Harry had once told Arthur, “Wherever she is, there’s enough, and never too much.” Arthur had known exactly what he meant.

She opened the door at Arthur’s knock, smiled warmly, and extended her hand. Arthur took the fingers and kissed them solemnly. “Milady,” he said ceremoniously. “Is the good doctor in?”

“Hello, Arthur. Good to see you. He’s in and being insufferable.”

“His treatments?”

“No. Something else, having to do with you, I presume.” Ithaca would never inquire. “Can I get you coffee? It’s been cold this winter. Today is especially dreary.”

“Yes, please. The office?”

“Sanctum sanctorum. How’s Francine? Marty?”

“They’re fine.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, obviously anxious to join Harry. Ithaca nodded.

“I’ll bring the coffee into the office. Go.”

“Thanks.” He always felt like complimenting Ithaca on her appearance, which was, as usual, wonderful — but she did not take kindly to compliments. How she looked and dressed was as natural to her as breathing. He smiled awkwardly and headed down the hall to the office.

Harry sat in an overstuffed chair, fire crackling brightly in the grate. His office had originally been the master bedroom, and after his marriage, he had kept it there. There were three large bedrooms with fireplaces in the house, enough to go around. Stacks of books rose beside his chair, some of them huge, old, and well thumbed. An Olympia typewriter hung keyboard down over the fireplace like a hunting trophy, while from its return key dangled three carbon-encrusted test tubes looped together by a red ribbon. The story behind this had to do with Harry’s doctoral thesis and was seldom told when Harry was sober.

In Harry’s lap rested a copy of Brin and Kuiper’s book on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. McClennan and Rotterjack had kept copies of the same book on their office desks. Arthur also noticed Hicks’s novel on the corner of a roll-around table, almost crowded off by stacks of infodisks.

“Finally, by God,” Harry said. “I’ve been stuck here getting over nausea and waiting for the word. What’s the word?”

“I’m to go to Australia with most of the task force. I’m leaving in three days, with a couple of hours stopover in Tahiti. We should just be able to put out a short report.”

“The newshounds are on our trail,” Harry said, raising his thick eyebrows.

“The President thinks we should release the story within a month. Rotterjack and the others aren’t enthusiastic.”

“And you?”

“Newshounds,” Arthur concurred, shrugging. “We may not have much choice soon.”

“They’ll have to release those folks at Vandenberg. Can’t hold them forever. They’re physically clean and healthy.”

Arthur closed the office door. “The Guest?”

Harry’s face worked. “Bogus,” he said. “I think it’s as much a robot as the Australian shmoos.”

“What does Phan think?”

“He’s good, but this has stretched him. He thinks it’s a product of a biologically advanced civilization, kind of a future citizen, sterile and largely artificial, but still bona fide an individual.”

“Why do you disagree?”

“It was never meant to process wastes. Planned obsolescence. The Guest poisoned itself and broke down. There was no evidence of any way to void the wastes through any sort of external dialysis. No anus, no urinary tract. No valves, no exit points. No lungs. It breathed through its skin. Not very efficient for a creature its size. And no sweat glands. Unconvincing as hell. But — I’m not so convinced that I’m going to stand up and shout howdy before all the President’s men. After all, that just complicates things, doesn’t it?”

Arthur nodded. “You’ve read Colonel Rogers’s report and seen his pictures?”

Harry held up a new infodisk, the security plastic sticker Day-Glo orange on its label. “An Air Force car brought it by yesterday. Impressive.”