Macao gazed at herself in the looking glass. She turned back toward him, pleased, frightened, uncertain. “Thank you,” she said. “Digger Dunn.”

He nodded.

“For everything,” she added.

LIBRARY ENTRY

The general public seems surprised that the Goompahs are so much like us. They had expected aliens to be, well, alien. As if their mathematics should be incomprehensible, as if they would develop from something other than a hunter-gatherer society, as if they would not need shelter from the storm, as if they would not love their children.

Indeed, they have all these things, and a great deal more. They have selfish politicians, they have squabbles, they even enjoy ball games.

There are, of course, some differences. To our eyes, they look odd. They do not seem interested in traveling far from home, to the extent that they hardly know what lies a few hundred kilometers beyond their seacoasts and their borders. They have primitive religious notions. And they seem to have some ideas about sex that most of us would frown on. At least, if anyone’s looking.

Maybe it’s time to recognize them for what they are, spiritual siblings. If one could sweep the differences in appearance and technology aside, who could doubt that many of us would feel quite comfortable in Brackel, the city that our researchers still insist on calling Athens? And it’s probable that these creatures of a far world would enjoy themselves thoroughly in Georgetown, or out on the Mall.

The Goompahs, the Korbikkans, as they call themselves, join us and the Noks as the only known living civilizations. The Noks quarrel constantly. The Korbikkans seem to have found a way to live in peace. How can we look at either of them and not see ourselves?

— C. W. Chrissinger

Staying the Course

Lookout.

On the ground at Kulnar.

Friday, September 19.

THE IMAGER ON Macao’s necklace was apparently facing her skin, so they got no picture. It seemed likely that she lived alone. They heard no conversation during the evening, just the sounds of someone moving around, pouring water, playing one of the stringed instruments. The wind blew against the side of the cottage, and forest creatures hooted and twirped. Doors opened and closed, the bolt rattled, and occasionally someone sighed.

It was the rattles that got Digger. How many times could she check the lock? And the sighs. Well, he could understand that. She’d just had a visit from a zhoka, and if the Goompahs shared the standard earthly tradition, that the devil could be very smooth, all Digger’s charm might not have helped.

Most surprising, they both thought, was that, when he’d left, she had not run screaming into the night. Had not gone to a friend or neighbor to describe what had happened.

They were listening from Utopia. Digger was emotionally exhausted. Almost as if he had just gone through an unexpected meeting with a demon. He’d gotten a shower as soon as they arrived, and sat wrapped in a robe, listening to Macao move around her cottage.

“If it were me,” said Kellie, “I’d be out of there and headed for my mother’s. Or something. Anything to get with other people.”

The omega was rising. It was approaching too slowly to make out any real change in its appearance from night to night. But when he compared images from a couple of weeks earlier, he could see the difference. And the Goompahs, more attuned to watching the night sky than he was, knew it was growing.

He pushed his seat back and drifted off. Digger usually woke two or three times during the night, but this time he slept straight through until Bill woke him shortly after dawn. “ Macao is up,” he said.

The imager was facing out now, so they watched while she stoked the fire, tossed in a log or two, washed, and got dressed. Then the necklace went inside her blouse, and the visuals were gone again. But they could hear, and that should be sufficient. She left the cottage for a few minutes, exchanged pleasantries with a neighbor, looks like rain, how’s your boy?

Then she was back, and water was pouring again. They heard wet sounds they couldn’t identify. Dishes moved around. Cabinet doors closed. Utensils clinked.

“When did we get knives and forks?” asked Kellie.

“The wealthy had them in the Middle Ages.”

Kellie got bored and made for the washroom. He listened to her splashing around in the shower. When she returned, wearing a Jenkins jumpsuit, nothing had changed. They could hear the rhythmic sound of Macao’s breathing. And her heartbeat.

Kellie looked out at a gray ocean. “What do you think?” she asked. “Did you convince her?”

Yes, he thought he had. He was sure he had.

Kellie brought him a plate of toast. He smeared strawberry jelly on it.

They heard boards creek. And more sounds at the fireplace. The visual, which had simply been a field of yellow, the color of her blouse, changed. Became the interior of a room he hadn’t seen before. The back room. Then they were looking up at a ceiling, with no movement detectable. “She’s taken it off and laid it down,” said Digger.

A bolt lifted, and a door opened and closed. “Front door,” said Kellie.

“Well, that’s not so good.”

“She might just be headed for the barn. Off to feed the animals.”

MACAO WAS GONE several hours. When finally she came back another female was with her.

“Where?” asked the other female.

“Here.” They saw a movement between the lens and the ceiling. An arm, maybe?

“Right there.”

“And you stayed here all night?”

“Ora, I believe him.”

“That’s why they’re so dangerous, Mac.” Mac? Mac? “Shol is the king of liars.”

“Look,” Macao said. “He gave me this.”

The picture blurred, and they were looking at Ora. She was wearing a red blouse and a violet neckerchief. One green eye grew very large and peered out of the screen at them. “It’s quite nice,” she said. “Lovely.” And then: “What’s wrong?”

A long pause. “I was wondering if he might be here now.”

“It’s daylight. They can’t stand the daylight.”

“Are you sure? There was talk of a zhoka out on the highway last spring. In the middle of the day.” The eye pulled away. They saw walls, then they were looking at the ceiling again.

“Mac, you’re giving me chills.” That wasn’t precisely what she said. It was more like causing her lungs to work harder. But Digger understood the meaning.

“Why did it come to me? Ora, I don’t even believe in zhokas. Or at least I didn’t until last night.”

“I warned you something like this would happen. Walking around laughing at the gods. What did you expect?”

“I never laughed at the gods.”

“Worse than that. You denied them.”

“Ora,” she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

The debate continued. Macao denied the charges, argued that she’d only maintained the gods did not run day-to-day operations. Did not make the sun move. Or the tides roll in.

Ora seemed nervous about being in the cottage, went on about apparitions, and suggested Macao might like to stay with her a while. Whatever devilry Digger might have imposed, it didn’t stop the two females from eating. And then they were gone, with no indication what step Macao would take next.

The pickup still provided a clear picture of the ceiling.

NOT KNOWING WHAT else they could try, they simply waited it out. A large insect buzzed the pickup. The shutters were apparently open because there was plenty of daylight. After a while, the light became dimmer, and they heard rain on the roof.

“She’s gone to see somebody about it,” said Kellie.

It was possible she’d gone to the governance building, T’Kalla. The chief executive in Kulnar was the booglik. I’m on my way to T’Kalla to talk to the booglik. It sounded almost normal.

He was still sitting, staring morosely at Macao’s overhead, at Mac’s overhead, when he heard the door open. By then the rain seemed to have stopped.

“Did you get it?” Ora’s voice.

“Right here.”

Footsteps moved across the planks. “No sign of him?”

“No. We’re alone.”

“Good. Listen, save some of the kessel for me, Mac.”

He heard sounds like a knife cutting through onions.

“I thought you didn’t believe it would work.”

“No. I said I don’t trust it to work. But there’s nothing to lose by trying it.”

The cutting continued. Then: “There, that should be enough.”

“Where do you want to put it?”

“In the doorway. Just block the threshold with it.”

“All right. You’re putting it in the windows too, right?”

“And in the fireplace. Just in case.”

Bill broke in: “I have a reference to kessel.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Kellie.

“It’s a common herb, found throughout the Intigo. Sometimes ground into grains and used as a seasoning. It’s also thought to provide a bar against demons and other spirits of the night.”

“A bar?” said Kellie.

“That’s why they’re putting it in all the entrances. Keep the demon out.”

“What good’s a sliced vegetable going to do?”

Digger was tired of it all. He was tempted to go back to the Jenkins and just sit tight until help arrived. Let somebody else deal with these loonies. “Think garlic,” he said.

“WHAT DO WE do now?”

Digger was ready to call it off. “Only thing I can think of, other than conceding we are not going to get through to these yahoos, is to go directly to the head guy. There must be somebody in this town who isn’t afraid of goblins.”

“I’m sure there is. But I doubt it’s the gloobik.”

“Booglik,” he said. “So who do you recommend?”

“Don’t know. Maybe the captain on the round-the-world voyage. What was his name?”

“Krolley.”

“Maybe we could get to him. He’s got to have some sense.”

“He’d have to be willing to turn around.”

“You don’t think he’d do that?”

“I don’t know him. But I suspect we’d have a better chance with somebody local.”

Kellie looked discouraged. Digger was beginning to realize she’d thought, as he had, that they’d won Macao over. “Even if we’d succeeded with Macao,” she said, “she’d still have had the problem of convincing the authorities. Macao didn’t think she could do it. And, despite the way things turned out, I don’t believe she was playacting.” She closed her eyes. “I think we need a different approach.”

“What do you think will happen with her?”