"Where do you stand? Do you think they're out there or not?" The general might have thought he had a poker face in place, but Jake had played too many poker games with him not to see the signs.

"You must know something, or we wouldn't be having this conversation," said the NCO, not rising to the bait.

"Yeah, well, we need a special team. You won't necessarily lead it; that will be decided later." Trayner pulled out a purple file folder, elaborately enwrapped in Top Secret tape. "About seven to ten, various specialties, to perform a covert insertion in a hostile environment with hostile indigenous forces to do order of battle and terrain assessments."

"You can't get that with overhead, boss? And where in the hell are we going to send a team against `hostile forces'? We're currently at peace, miracle of miracles." He wiggled his finger, indicating that the general, sir, should stop being coy and hand over the file. He could smell the mission and it smelled dangerous and interesting, two attributes that always caught him. For all his bitching about running open-eyed towards danger, if he could have walked away from an adrenaline rush he would have gotten out of this business a long time ago.

"We . . . can't get overhead. There's coverage. And the where is in this folder," Trayner said, waving it back and forth as if to waft it under Jake's nose. Trayner knew Jake's weakness of old.

"Okay, drop the other shoe, General. What's it got to do with ULFs?" Jake sometimes felt that he was the proverbial terminated cat; curiosity was definitely going to kill him someday.

"Ahem, let's just say you're not the sneakiest son of a bitch in town anymore." The normally somber general smiled. "Himmit Rigas, now might be a good time." With those words, the wall to the right of the general's desk unfolded into a four-limbed being, its skin color rippling from the thin green stripes of the wallpaper to a uniform purple gray. The arms that had been stretched upward to the ceiling slowly slipped to the floor until it was in a quadrupedal stance. It now appeared to be an equi-limbed frog with four eyes, one set on either end, and two mouths, one on either end. There was a complex honeycomb formation above the mouths and between wide-set eyes; it could have been an ear or a nose. The skin continued to ripple as the being flowed forward and raised one of its paw/hands in an obvious invitation to shake. A box strapped to the wrist/ankle began to speak in a high tenor.

"You are remarkably still for a human. Do you know any good stories?" it said.

This moment would come to many people over the next few years. Each would deal with it in a defining way. For the first time in the history of mankind, people would know without doubt that man was not alone in the universe, that there was other intelligent life in the galaxy, and would look on the face of an alien being. Some would react with fear, some with friendship, some with love, each response as diverse as mankind. Sergeant Major Mosovich simply stretched out his hand in return. At the touch of the alien paw, his adrenaline gland shot a leemer, defined by the military as a cold shot of urine to the heart, into his system. The proffered appendage was cool and smooth, covered with a fine coating of silken feathers. Jake carefully controlled his breathing and voice. "Thanks. You're not half bad yourself. How long have you been there?"

"Since yesterday in the day. After the second meal you take, but before the general's afternoon briefing. I entered from the ceiling through the door while the guard directed a visitor. The lock was insignificant. It was, as you discovered, readily manipulated through a magnetic pick. The general has had fifteen visitors and seventy-eight phone calls in the last eighteen hours. He has been present for fifteen of those eighteen hours. His visitors were, in order, his aide, Lieutenant Colonel William Jackson, on the subject of his canceling a previously scheduled social engagement. The second visitor—"

"Excuse me, Himmit Rigas, but I need to hold an initial briefing for Sergeant Major Mosovich." The general smiled politely, having already become used to the Himmit's characteristic volubility. His smile carefully did not reveal teeth.

"Certainly, General. My tale can wait to fully unfold."

Jake slowly turned back to the general and collapsed onto the couch. He refused to watch as the Himmit flowed back into camouflage against the wall.

"The background brief is in here." Trayner finally tossed Jake the purple file. "Read it here; it doesn't leave this room. Then start thinking about a team to take off-planet for a reconnaissance mission. The world will be Earth-like, swampy and cool. You'll be preparing here and there extensively with the Himmit. When we get done with the initial operations order I'll send you back to Bragg. Set up a team, but you don't brief them until you've decided on the final group. After that they go on lock down, that's from NCA too."

"How did the Pres. become involved?" asked Mosovich, not yet opening the file.

"They called him on the phone," answered the VCA.

"Really?"

"Really." The officer shook his head. "They just called him from orbit on his direct line, along with the heads of the G-7, China and Russia. That was three days ago."

"Fast work for Washington." Jake took another sip of his coffee, opening the file as he did so. As he did he noticed that the whole file was constructed of slick flash paper. This was being held awfully close to the vest if the VCA was handling a flash file. The file felt greasy and cold in his hands and he had a premonition that the mission was going to feel the same way. "Okay, but I'll need one other person to help recruit the team."

"Who?" asked the general, suspiciously.

"A sergeant first class named Ersin."

The general thought about it briefly then nodded. "Okay, you can brief him in on my authority. Understand, right now this is as closely held as anything I've ever heard; it's all on the old boy network. Do not reveal anything to anybody else."

"I don't even tell myself half the things I do." Jake said with a smile and, with one last glance at the Himmit retracting into camouflage, he began to read the file.

3

Ft. McPherson, GA Sol III

0931 EDT March 18th, 2001 AD

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Admiral Daniel Cleburne and for those of you who don't recognize me, I'm the Chief of Naval Operations." The secure auditorium was about half filled with a mixture of uniformed and civilian personnel, mostly male. Something about most of the civilians made Mike suspect they had once worn blue or green. Apparently others besides General Horner had dipped into former commands.

"I was chosen to deliver this address to communicate the gravity of the information and because I could disappear more easily than the other Joint Chiefs. For the record I am currently sailing in the Bahamas.

"As covered in your agreements, each of you should have already contacted next of kin and informed them that you agreed to be locked in for a period of two to four months. You are working with a former colleague on a secret project and you will be home soon. Please, in your future communications, downplay the severity of this situation as much as possible. That a project has shanghaied a number of civilians will, inevitably, come to the ears of the press, but the longer we can stonewall the core information, the better for the nation and the world. We prefer to release it timed with other countries and in such a way as to minimize . . . uncontrolled reactions.

"My wife hates the old `good-news-bad-news' routine but here goes:

"The good news, for most of you science fiction buffs anyway, is that first contact has been made with a friendly alien species."