Eschaton 2 - THE SIEGE OF ETERNITY

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Traffic was unbelievable. Dannerman's taxi inchwormed along Forty-sixth Street, lunging forward a meter or two and then stopping dead, with the driver angrily slapping the wheel and muttering obscenities to himself. When at last they reached Second Avenue there was a solid line of cops to keep everybody from entering the last block. "Street's closed," the nearest one bawled, waving her stunstick. "Move it on!"

Dannerman had to walk the rest of the way. At the United Nations Plaza there wasn't any traffic moving at all, not vehicular at least. The whole street in front of the UN Building was choked with thousands of human beings, chanting, shouting, milling around in defiance of the police squadrons trying to move them along. And when he had zigzagged his way through the pack he found a long line waiting at the gate to the UN complex. Most of them appeared to be would-be spectators hoping to get in for the show. Most of them weren't succeeding.

Tolerantly Dannerman took his place at the end of it. He was in no particular hurry, and a few thousand brawling religious fanatics weren't going to spoil his day. Dannerman considered that his world was definitely improving itself. He had accomplished his mission in Ukraine without bloodshed. He no longer had a guard tailing him every moment…

And then there was Anita Berman, who had been the biggest improvement of all.

Anita had always been a sweet and forgiving woman, with plenty to forgive: any number of broken dates and long absences when he could not tell her what was going on because it was Bureau business. Now that she knew he was a Bureau agent all the lapses were explained. No, better than just explained. Anita was thrilled. She had been as swept up in the Scarecrow turmoil as anyone else on Earth, and here he was, her lover, astonishingly at the very heart of it! "I was always pretty crazy about you, Dan," she had whispered in his ear the night before, "but, wow, now it's really special!"

He was grinning reminiscently to himself, when someone tapped his shoulder. It was a cop, pointing at the beginning of the line. There a woman inside the gate was beckoning peremptorily to Danner-man. He recognized her as Senator Alicia Piombero, and she was gesturing for him to come in.

Even at the UN, a United States senator could smooth all ways. When he had run the gauntlet of catcalls from the waiting line and was at the gate, she looked him over, and said, "You're Dannerman, right? You were summoned to appear at this thing?" And, when he nodded: "That's what I told the guard. Just show him the summons and he'll let you in."

The guard did. As they walked toward the actual doorway he thanked the woman, and she said, "You're welcome. Maybe we can do each other a favor."

"What's that?" he asked, but she shook her head, pointing at the other guard post just inside the door. When they had finished with the metal detectors and the patdowns and the sniffers she took him aside.

"Listen," she said, "I only have a minute because I have to get up to the Security Council, but you've been having trouble collecting your pay, haven't you? I mean, because now there are two of you?"

It was a sore point. "The damn payroll people are taking forever to figure out what to do, yes," he said.

"Well, Representative Collerton-I don't know if you know her? She's willing to get a special members' bill through to pay both you Dannermans in full. You're entitled, after all, and that would cut right through the red tape."

Dannerman perked up, then his guard went up. "That would be good," he said cautiously, waiting for it.

"Glad to do it, Dannerman, but you can do something for me, too, if you want to. You know Marcus is a little annoyed with me?"

Mr. L. Koga: "Whatever may or may not be going on in the Security Council at this time, it is our undoubted duty to learn the facts in this matter to the satisfaction of each and every delegate, not just those who represent the so-called Great Powers, so that we may take appropriate action."

Mr. V. Puunamunda: "Will the gentleman from Kenya please yield?"

Mr. L. Koga: "I will yield to the gentleman from the Marshall Islands for thirty seconds."

Mr. V. Puunamunda: "I thank the gentleman. I wish only to call to the attention of this body that our islands may be endangered, owing to the severe tropical storms of recent years, but they are still voting members of this General Assembly, and we, too, should be allowed to participate in the questioning of the witnesses."

– Proceedings of the General Assembly

"I know about Senator Wintczak's stories that he thinks came from you, yes."

She clearly didn't want to discuss the stories. She just said, "So he's doing a lot of stuff that I'm not kept informed on. I can't let that happen. You can understand that. We aren't going to go back to those old CIA days, with you spooks going off on all sorts of tear-ass mystery missions and the Senate kept fat, dumb and ignorant."

"No, ma'am," Dannerman said, because she seemed to expect it.

"So we can do each other some good. If you could just keep me posted on what's happening that isn't talked about in the team meetings-"

Dannerman did his best not to laugh; the woman wanted him to spy on the spymaster!

"I'm not asking you for anything I don't have a right to know," she went on persuasively. "Give me a call when you can, and I'll get Susie Collerton started on the bill. Right now I've got to get up to the Council."

That made him frown. "You're going to the Security Council? But I thought it was the General Assembly that was meeting."

She looked at him with faint pity. "That's where the circus is. The Council is where the work will be done. Think about it. We'll talk later."

Once inside the building a uniformed woman in a blue UN beret escorted Dannerman to a waiting room. Dannerman, still mulling over his conversation with the senator, paid little attention to where they were going until she stopped at a doorway, saluted smartly, and said, with an accent Dannerman couldn't identify, "In here, please, until you are called."

The place was marked "VISITORS' LOUNGE" on the door, in all five of the official languages of the UN, but the only visitors in it that day were the ones with subpoenas from the General Assembly. Some of them were there already, Dannerman saw, Rosaleen Artzbachova and Pat Adcock sitting near the door and, at the far end of the large room and not sitting at all, four people in the uniform of the People's Republic of China. Dannerman recognized one of them-no, Dannerman corrected himself, he recognized two of them, and they both were the pilot who had taken them to Starlab in the first place, Commander James Peng-tsu Lin. He nodded toward the Lins, but, standing stony-faced and silent, they didn't meet his eye. He shrugged and turned to the others. "Morning," he said. "You look like you're all recovered from our trip."

Rosaleen corrected him. "This one wasn't in Ukraine. She's Patrice. Pat's in the ladies' with Pat Five, but, yes, we're fully recovered. How did things go in Arlington?"

"Oh," he said, recollecting himself, "no problem. The D.D. ate me out a little, but then they sent me right home, because they had other things on their minds. They did have orders for me, so you'll be seeing a lot of me for a while. They've put me in charge of your guard details at the Observatory."

The door opened again. When Dannerman turned he saw the two Pats, returned from the washroom, but they didn't enter right away. They were peering curiously down the hall, and so was their escort.

Dannerman had no trouble recognizing which was Pat Five. In just the few days since he had seen her last she seemed to have become much more pregnant. She was definitely heavier than the Pat beside her, and a lot of the gained weight appeared to be in her face, which looked almost bloated. Dannerman had had very little experience of pregnant women, but he remembered hearing that they were supposed to be at their prettiest when pregnant. It hadn't worked that way for Pat Five. The guard in the blue beret spoke to them, and they hastily got out of the way to make room for the next arrivals.

Of which there were a lot. First came Hilda Morrisey and her new aide, along with a uniformed Bureau lieutenant colonel Dannerman didn't recognize; then a couple of Bureau guards, curiously lugging large, flat boxes of torn-up paper. Then there was another clutch of guards surrounding the aliens: the two huge, pale Docs, one of them carrying the little turkey thing, Dopey. Finally the other Dannerman and his Pat One strolled in, keeping their distance from the space freaks; and suddenly the large room didn't seem very large anymore.

Hilda Morrisey glanced around, then nodded to the lieutenant colonel, who began issuing orders. The two guards with the paper boxes set them down near a window, while the others shepherded the aliens to the same area, Dopey looking on interestedly but silent.

The Chinese officers looked up, first startled and uneasy as they found themselves in the presence of the weird beings from space, then in revulsion as they caught the scent of them. The senior officer spoke sharply. They began to move farther away, but the two Jimmy Lins didn't follow. They were speaking agitatedly to each other, then one of them hurried across the room to Pat Five, wearing a broad and suspiciously fake smile. "How nice to see you, my dear!" he cried. "And my unborn child, how is he doing?"

Pat Five gave him nothing but a hostile look, but Patrice answered for her. "He isn't yours, he's ours, and he isn't him. He's them. Three of them. She's having triplets."

"Triplets! How very wonderful!"

"Oh, cut it out," Patrice said in disgust. "Really, Jimmy, you don't want these kids, do you?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the PRC officers. "Certainly I want my children! And I want them brought up in their homeland!"

The senior PRC officer snapped a command as Patrice was saying, "Come off it, Jimmy."

He looked at her, then turned to obey his keeper's order. But as he left he whispered, "I can't."

Hilda Morrisey, standing by the door, watched curiously for a moment, then turned and rapped on the door. When the UN guard opened they spoke briefly, then Hilda conferred for a moment with her lieutenant colonel before waving Dan over. "I don't think you've met. Dan, this is Priam Makalanos, who's helping me with the freaks; Priam, Dan Dannerman. You'll take orders from Colonel Makalanos while I'm up at the Security Council chamber, Dan," she finished, and rapped again on the door.

Warily Dannerman shook the lieutenant colonel's hand, expecting, but wincing from, the punishing grip. "What orders are those, Colonel?" he asked.

"None, I hope. These guys aren't giving us any trouble now, for a change."

He was gesturing at the aliens. They not only weren't causing trouble, they weren't doing anything at all. The two Docs stood silent and impassive while Dopey, curled in the arm of one of them, appeared to be asleep, his great fantail overspreading his body.

Dannerman had expected that as soon as they arrived they'd be conducted into the General Assembly auditorium, but that wasn't the way it was. Colonel Makalanos explained to him that the reason Hilda had left was that some sort of procedural fight was going on.

The Security Council was meeting independently of the General Assembly in its own wing of the building, and a fierce battle was going on in the General Assembly itself over who was to be summoned before them for questioning, and who was to be allowed to ask the questions.

Meanwhile, they waited. Dannerman restlessly prowled the lounge, taking note of the pictures on the wall (Trygve Lie, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, half a dozen other figures prominent in the history of the UN), the little barlike cubicle which contained a coffee machine (unfortunately not in use), the rack of ancient magazines. He became aware of the eyes of the other Dannerman on him, and gave his twin a guardedly friendly hello-another personal problem that he couldn't see a good way of dealing with. The other Dannerman returned it in the same tone.

He was spared the necessity of making conversation when two men in the uniforms of the Free State of Florida entered. One of them was General Martin Delasquez, who had been one of the pilots Pat Adcock persuaded to fly them to Starlab in the first place.

Rosaleen caught sight of General Delasquez coming in and hurried over to him. "Martin!" she cried affectionately. "I thought you were dead! It's so wonderful to see you again-"

And then, when the general gave her a frosty look, her expression clouded. "Oh, hell, you're the other one, aren't you?" Shaking her head, she went over to sit before a low table and began tearing up bits of paper. "Anyone for a game of chess?" she asked.

When at last they were brought into the General Assembly Hall Dannerman blinked at the size of the audience.

Dannerman had had the experience of being debriefed, or made to testify, often enough before. At least the Bureau's interrogations had been more or less private. Even in the Pit of Pain there had seldom been more than a few dozen watchers, but this was on a whole other scale. The General Assembly Hall was packed, all 194 nations fully represented in their individual stations, and the visitors' gallery solidly filled as well. There were easily two thousand people in the auditorium, muttering and whispering to each other as the thirteen "witnesses" trudged to the raised dais and took their seats on spindly-legged gilt chairs. Dannerman counted heads: there were four Patrice Adcocks, two Dan Dannermans, two Jimmy Lins, one each of Rosaleen Artzybachova, Martin Delasquez and Dopey, now alert and looking curiously around the room. That wasn't even counting the guards in dress uniform and riot guns, standing behind each chair to "protect" them. The guards wore UN blue helmets, but their uniforms were of the U.S. Marines.

And then, to complete the roster, the pair of Docs, their moss-bearded faces impassive, their half dozen arms moving placidly. Those things weren't real witnesses, of course. They couldn't be, in any practical sense, since they never spoke. Nor, also of course, were they seated on the frail gilt chairs. They weren't seated at all. They stood remote and still at one end of the row of witnesses, and each one of the Docs had not one but three Marine guards standing tensely over it.

Dannerman did not think the Marines were there to protect the Docs. They weren't watching the audience at all. They were all precisely focused on the immense, multiarmed creatures from space, and that was the way their weapons were pointing.

Still, Dannerman thought, maybe the Docs did need protection after all. The word was that some of the demonstrators had briefly broken through the massed police battalions around the UN Building complex, before reinforcements managed to get to that point to drive them back. He had seen half a dozen people turned away as they failed the screening for unchecked weapons. Whether the weapons were on their persons from absentmindedness or malicious intent wasn't stated. It didn't matter. Either way, those people would be watching the televised proceedings, if at all, from their cells in one of New York's city jails.

The delegates to the General Assembly were still earnestly wrangling-in several languages, few of which Dannerman understood.

Though Dopey, with his total command of nearly all Earthly tongues, was alertly following it all.

But then the presiding delegate gaveled everyone to silence. "Gentlemen and ladies," he said-in English-"let us begin the questioning. Ask the witness known as 'Dopey' to take the stand."

When the little alien hopped onto the witness stand two thousand people sighed in unison. The interrogator rapped for order, looking pleased as he motioned to the clerk to swear the witness in.

Federal Reserve Inflation Bulletin

The morning recommended price adjustment for inflation is set at 1.06%. Federal Reserve Chairman Walter C. Boettger declined to set an annualized rate, stating, "This unprecedented increase in the rate of inflation is a purely temporary phenomenon which cannot be tolerated. If it continues, a third increase in interest rates must be considered, but I have confidence that the good sense of the American people will assert itself."

When the clerk approached with the Bible he got a curious look from Dopey. The look got curiouser as the clerk rattled off his formula: "Please put your hand on the Bible. Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"I beg your pardon," Dopey said. "Which God are you referring to?" So naturally there was another ten minutes of off-mike whispering before one of the interrogator's aides had the intelligence to have his principal ask Dopey just what it was he did believe in. Dopey considered that for a moment, then said doubtfully that one could say, yes, he believed in the Beloved Leaders. Then it took another five minutes before he was allowed to swear himself in in their name, without the Bible; and then the interrogator made the mistake of courteously asking him if he were being well cared for.

When she managed to turn off Dopey's lengthy and even more than usually repetitious reply, things went better. Yes, he had occupied Starlab for the purpose of eavesdropping on Earth for the Beloved Leaders. And, the interrogator asked, what was the information to be used for? Was Mr. Dopey preparing the way for an invasion?

Mr. Dopey took offense. "Invasion? Certainly not! They merely wished to protect you from the tyrannical rule of the Horch-not only now, but in the eternity of the eschaton to come."

"Ah, the eschaton," the interrogator repeated, smiling. "Would you tell us, please, about this 'eschaton' of yours?"

Dopey would. He did. He kept on doing so until a restive delegate, on a point of order, reminded the presiding officer that, after all, what they were here to do was to discuss the benefits the world might hope to gain from these extraterrestrials and their technology, not some philosophical question of an afterlife.

Which, of course, produced another free-for-all. Dannerman wasn't listening. He was watching one of the Docs, who was showing signs of being restive. The creature wasn't going to hold out forever, Dannerman thought…

He didn't. The inevitable happened. A titter and gasp from the audience turned everyone's eyes to the Doc, who had blandly relieved himself, with his paper boxes still left in the lounge room.

Startled, then amused-and a little belatedly-the president declared a recess; and all the witnesses trooped back to their holding room.

To Dannerman's surprise, he saw the deputy director just leaving the room as they arrived. Hilda Morrisey was inside, looking strangely thoughtful.

"Is something wrong?" Dannerman asked.

She considered the question. "Wrong? No. The Security Council has taken a vote, though, so what you guys were doing in the G.A. doesn't matter much anymore. They've okayed the Eurospace launch, only it's a UN thing now and one American and one Chinese is going along. So I'll be seeing you people at your Observatory."

"Why?" Pat demanded, suddenly suspicious.

"Why? So you can give me a crash course on what Starlab is like. See, I'm going to be the American."