Arthur turned to Ithaca. “Harry and I have to speak alone for just a few minutes.”

“All right,” Ithaca said, with barely concealed resentment. She stood up and went into the corridor.

“Something juicy?” Harry asked, opening his eyes again.

“Do you remember when we were eleven, and I played that trick on you?”

“Which one?” Harry asked.

“I said I had been inhabited by a spaceman. That my body was being used to help investigate the Earth.”

“Jesus,” Harry said, shaking his head, smiling. “I’d forgotten about that one. You really took it to extremes.”

“I was a kid. Life was dull.”

“You spent three weeks acting like an alien whenever you were around me. Asking all sorts of weird questions, telling me about life on your planet.”

“I never apologized for pulling that on you.”

Harry held up one hand.

“You told me you had prayed to God to tell you whether I was a spaceman or not, and God had said—”

“God had told me you were a fraud.” Harry’s face seemed almost healthy now, with the memories coming back. “I was a pretty rampant little theologian then. So you ducked out.”

Arthur nodded. “I said I’d be going away, and never coming back — the alien inside me, rather. And it did.”

“You refused to acknowledge you had ever acted like an alien. Total memory blank. What a scam.”

“Our friendship survived. That surprised me a little, years later, thinking about it…”

“I wouldn’t have believed you if I hadn’t wanted to. As you say, life was dull.”

Arthur looked down at Harry’s shriveled arms. “It wasn’t right. I deeply regretted it. It might be the only thing between us I do regret…”

“Besides stealing Alma Henderson from me.”

“That was a favor. No. I mean it. I especially regret doing that to you now, because…I’m about to do it again.”

Harry’s grin took an edge of puzzlement. Arthur’s expression was deadly serious, but enthused; his arms fairly twitched with holding something in, and he reached up to pinch his cheek, as he always did when thinking.

“All right,” Harry said.

That brought the tears to Arthur’s eyes. The way Harry accepted whatever was coming from him, without hesitation, forthrightly. You could be married a million years and such instant rapport would be impossible. Arthur loved Harry fiercely then. The tears slid down his cheek and he took a deep breath, then leaned over and whispered in his friend’s ear.

“Christ,” Harry said when he had finished. He stared earnestly at Arthur. One finger slowly tapped the blanket. “Now I know I’m dreaming.” He blinked at the cloud-filtered sunshine coming through the window curtains. “You wouldn’t…” Abandoning that question, he said, “When did this happen to you?”

“This morning.”

Harry looked at the curtain. “Ithaca. She can tell me. I’ve been confused. She left…”

Arthur took the metal spider from his pocket and held it before Harry’s face, resting it in his palm. It moved its legs in a slow, restless dance. Harry’s eyes widened and he made an effort to back up against the pillows. “Christ,” he repeated. “What is it? What is it doing here?”

“It’s a miniature von Neumann probe,” Arthur said. “It explores, recruits. Does research. Gathers samples. It makes copies of itself.” He returned the spider to his pocket. “Captain Cook has his own enemies,” he said.

“So what are you, a slave?”

Arthur didn’t respond for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Who else…?”

Arthur shook his head. “There are others.”

“What if it’s another…layer of deception?” Harry asked, closing his eyes again.

“I don’t think it is.”

“You’re saying there’s hope.”

Arthur’s expression changed to puzzlement. “That’s not the word I’d use. But there’s a new factor, yes.”

“And this is all you know.”

“All I know,” Arthur said. He touched Harry’s arm. They sat quietly for a few moments, Harry thinking this over. The effort tired him.

“All right,” he said. “I’ve known you long enough. You told me so I could die with some good news, maybe, right?”

Arthur nodded.

“They let you tell me.”

“Yes.”

Harry closed his eyes. “I love you, old buddy,” he said. “You’ve always managed to come up with the craziest things to keep me amused.”

“I love you, too, Harry.” Arthur stepped outside the room to call Ithaca in. She resumed her seat, saying nothing.

“I think you must…have a lot of work to do,” Harry said. “I can’t think straight and…I’m too tired to talk much now.” He waved his finger: time to go.

“Thanks for coming by,” Ithaca said, handing him the tape from the small recorder. Arthur hugged her tightly, then bent over the bed and took Harry’s head gently between his hands.

Thirty years. I can still recognize him behind the mask of sickness. He’s still my beloved Harry.

Arthur squinted, trying to hold back the flooding warmth in his eyes, trying to will another world where his friend would not be dying — ignoring for the moment the Earth’s own illness, ignoring the general for the particular, a more human scale of magic — and knowing he would fail; Also trying to memorize something already passing: the shape of Harry’s face, the set of his eyes, slightly athwart one another, even more elfin in his illness, though glazed; unable to imagine this fevered face with rounded nose and high forehead and strawlike patchy hair, even this ill frame, decaying in a grave.

“I’ll carry you around with me wherever I go,” he said, and kissed Harry on the forehead. Harry reached up slowly and hooked his hand around Arthur’s wrist, touching his heated lips to Arthur’s right palm.

“Same here.”

Arthur left the room quickly, eyes forward. In the parking lot, he sat behind the wheel of the rental car, stunned, his head seeming stuffed with sharp twigs.

“Thank you for letting me do that, I’d like to go back to my family, if there’s time.”

As the sun rose high over Los Angeles, nothing constrained him from returning to the airport and taking the next available flight back to Oregon.

42

Hicks leaned against a massive marble-covered pillar, watching dozens of people enter and leave the hotel lobby. Most were dressed in business suits and overcoats; the weather outside was brisk and there had been cold rain just an hour before. Many others, however, seemed ill equipped for the weather; they were out-of-towners, gawkers.

Much of official Washington had seemed to come to a standstill. With the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House in open conflict now, such petty considerations as budgets had to wait. The tourist trade, oddly, had momentarily increased, and hotels through much of the city were jammed. Come see your Capital in an uproar.

After an hour, he still had not spotted Bordes, so he checked for messages at the desk. There were none. Feeling more isolated than ever, his stomach sour and his neck tense, he returned to the pillar.

It was remarkable how life went on without apparent change. By now, most of the people on Earth were aware the planet might be under sentence of death. Many had neither the education nor the mental capacity to understand the details, or judge for themselves; they relied on experts, who knew so very little more than they. Yet even for those with more education and imagination, life went on — conducting business (he imagined the events being discussed over expense-account lunches), politics almost as usual (House investigations notwithstanding), and then back at the end of the day to family and home. Eating. Visits to the bathroom. Sleeping. Lovemaking. Giving birth. The whole cyclic round.

A tall, gangly black youth in a green army overcoat passed through the rotating front door, paused, then walked ahead, looking right and left suspiciously. Hicks clung to the security of not moving, not making himself conspicuous, but the boy’s head turned his way and their eyes met and held. Bordes raised one hand tentatively in greeting and Hicks nodded, pushing away from the pillar with his shoulder.