“No—”
“‘All seated on the ground.’ Here,” he said, rewinding. “Listen.”
He played it again. I watched the Altairi, focusing on picking out the sound of the Muzak through the rest of the noise. “‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night,’” the choir sang, “‘all seated on the ground.’”
He was right. The Altairi sat down the instant the word “seated” ended. I looked at him.
“See?” he said happily. “The song said to sit down and they sat. I happened to notice it because I was singing along with the Muzak. It’s a bad habit of mine. The girls tease me about it.”
But why would the Altairi respond to the words in a Christmas carol when they hadn’t responded to anything else we’d said to them over the last nine months? “Can I borrow this videotape?” I asked. “I need to show it to the rest of the commission.”
“Sure,” he said, and asked Mrs. Carlson.
“I don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “I have tapes of every single one of Belinda’s performances.”
“She’ll make a copy and get the original back to you,” Mr. Ledbetter told her. “Isn’t that right, Meg?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Great,” he said. “You can send the tape to me, and I’ll see to it Belinda gets it. Will that work?” he asked Mrs. Carlson.
She nodded, popped the tape out, and handed it to me. “Thank you,” I said and hurried back over to Dr. Morthman, who was still arguing with the mall manager.
“You can’t just close the entire mall,” the manager was saying. “This is the biggest profit period of the year—”
“Dr. Morthman,” I said, “I have a tape here of the Altairi sitting down. It was taken by—”
“Not now,” he said. “I need you to go tell Leo to film everything the Altairi might have seen.”
“But he’s taping the Altairi,” I said. “What if they do something else?” but he wasn’t listening.
“Tell him we need a video record of everything they might have responded to, the stores, the shoppers, the Christmas decorations, everything. And then call the police department and tell them to cordon off the parking lot. Tell them no one’s to leave.”
“Cordon off—!” the mall manager said. “You can’t hold all these people here!”
“All these people need to be moved out of this end of the mall and into an area where they can be questioned,” Dr. Morthman said.
“Questioned?” the mall manager, almost apoplectic, said.
“Yes, one of them may have seen what triggered their action—”
“Someone did,” I said. “I was just talking to—”
He wasn’t listening. “We’ll need names, contact information, and depositions from all of them,” he said to the mall manager. “And they’ll need to be tested for infectious diseases. The Altairi may be sitting down because they don’t feel well.”
“Dr. Morthman, they aren’t sick,” I said. “They—”
“Not now,” he said. “Did you tell Leo?”
I gave up. “I’ll do it now,” I said and went over to where Leo was filming the Altairi and told him what Dr. Morthman wanted him to do.
“What if the Altairi do something?” he said, looking at them sitting there glaring. He sighed. “I suppose he’s right. They don’t look like they’re going to move anytime soon.” He swung his camera around and started filming the Victoria’s Secret window. “How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?”
I told him what Dr. Morthman had said.
“Jeez, he’s going to question all these people?” he said, moving to the Williams-Sonoma window. “I had somewhere to go tonight.”
All these people have somewhere to go tonight, I thought, looking at the crowd—mothers with babies in strollers, little kids, elderly couples, teenagers. Including fifty middle-school girls who were supposed to be at another performance an hour from now. And it wasn’t the choir director’s fault Dr. Morthman wouldn’t listen.
“We’ll need a room large enough to hold everyone,” Dr. Morthman was saying, “and adjoining rooms for interrogating them,” and the mall manager was shouting, “This is a mall, not Guantanamo!”
I backed carefully away from Dr. Morthman and the mall manager and then worked my way through the crowd to where the choir director was standing, surrounded by his students. “But, Mr. Ledbetter,” one of them was saying, “we’d come right back, and the pretzel place is right over there.”
“Mr. Ledbetter, could I speak to you for a moment?” I said.
“Sure. Shoo,” he said to the girls.
“But, Mr. Ledbetter—”
He ignored them. “What did the commission think of the Christmas carol theory?” he asked me.
“I haven’t had a chance to ask them. Listen, in another five minutes they’re going to lock down this entire mall.”
“But I—”
“I know, you’ve got another performance and if you’re going to leave, do it right now. I’d go that way,” I said, pointing to the east door.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly, “but won’t you get into trouble—?”
“If I need your choir’s depositions, I’ll call you,” I said. “What’s your number?”
“Belinda, give me a pen and something to write on,” he said. She handed him a pen and began rummaging in her backpack.
“Never mind,” he said, “there isn’t time.” He grabbed my hand and wrote the number on my palm.
“You said we aren’t allowed to write on ourselves,” Belinda said.
“You’re not,” he said. “I really appreciate this, Meg.”
“Go,” I said, looking anxiously over at Dr. Morthman. If they didn’t go in the next thirty seconds, they’d never make it, and there was no way he could round up fifty middle-school girls in that short a time. Or even make himself heard . . .
“Ladies,” he said, and raised his hands as if he were going to direct a choir. “Line up.” And to my astonishment, they instantly obeyed him, forming themselves silently into a line and walking quickly toward the east door with no giggling, no “Mr. Ledbetter—?” My opinion of him went up sharply.
I pushed quickly back through the crowd to where Dr. Morthman and the mall manager were still arguing. Leo had moved farther down the mall to film the Verizon Wireless store and away from the east door. Good. I rejoined Dr. Morthman, moving to his right side so if he turned to look at me, he couldn’t see the door.
“But what about bathrooms?” the manager was yelling. “The mall doesn’t have nearly enough bathrooms for all these people.”
The choir was nearly out the door. I watched till the last one disappeared, followed by Mr. Ledbetter.
“We’ll get in portable toilets. Miss Yates, arrange for Porta-Potties to be brought in,” Dr. Morthman said, turning to me, and it was obvious he had no idea I’d ever been gone. “And get Homeland Security on the phone.”
“Homeland Security!” the manager wailed. “Do you know what it’ll do to business when the media gets hold—” He stopped and looked over at the crowd around the Altairi.
There was a collective gasp from them and then a hush. Someone must have turned the Muzak off at some point because there was no sound at all in the mall. “What—? Let me through,” Dr. Morthman said, breaking the silence. He pushed his way through the circle of shoppers to see what was happening.
I followed in his wake. The Altairi were slowly standing up, a motion somewhat like a string being pulled taut.
“Thank goodness,” the mall manager said, sounding infinitely relieved. “Now that that’s over, I assume I can reopen the mall.”
Dr. Morthman shook his head. “This may be the prelude to another action, or the response to a second stimulus. Leo, I want to see the video of what was happening right before they began to stand up.”
“I didn’t get it,” Leo said.
“Didn’t get it?”
“You told me to tape the stuff in the mall,” he said, but
Dr. Morthman wasn’t listening. He was watching the Altairi, who had turned around and were slowly glide-waddling back toward the east door.
“Go after them,” he ordered Leo. “Don’t let them out of your sight, and get it on tape this time.” He turned to me. “You stay here and see if the mall has surveillance tapes. And get all these people’s names and contact information in case we need to question them.”
“Before you go, you need to know—”
“Not now. The Altairi are leaving. And there’s no telling where they’ll go next,” he said, and took off after them. “See if anyone caught the incident on a video camera.”
As it turned out, the Altairi went only as far as the van we’d brought them to the mall in, where they waited, glaring, to be transported back to DU. When I got back, they were in the main lab with Dr. Wakamura. I’d been at the mall nearly four hours, taking down names and phone numbers from Christmas shoppers who said things like, “I’ve been here six hours with two toddlers. Six hours!” and “I’ll have you know I missed my grandson’s Christmas concert.” I was glad I’d helped Mr. Ledbetter and his seventh-grade girls sneak out. They’d never have made it to the other mall in time.
When I was finished taking names and abuse, I went to ask the mall manager about surveillance tapes, expecting more abuse, but he was so glad to have his mall open again, he turned them over immediately. “Do these tapes have audio?” I asked him, and when he said no, “You wouldn’t also have a tape of the Christmas music you play, would you?”
I was almost certain he wouldn’t—Muzak is usually piped in—but to my surprise he said yes and handed over a CD. I stuck it and the tapes in my bag, drove back to DU, and went to the main lab to find Dr. Morthman. I found Dr. Wakamura instead, squirting assorted food court smells—corn dog, popcorn, sushi—at the Altairi to see if any of them made them sit down. “I’m convinced they were responding to one of the mall’s aromas,” he said.
“Actually, I think they may have—”
“It’s just a question of finding the right one,” he said, squirting pizza at them. They glared.
“Where’s Dr. Morthman?”
“Next door,” he said, squirting essence of funnel cake. “He’s meeting with the rest of the commission.”
I winced and went next door. “We need to look at the floor coverings in the mall,” Dr. Short was saying. “The Altairi may well have been responding to the difference between wood and stone.”
“And we need to take air samples,” Dr. Jarvis said. “They may have been responding to something poisonous to them in our atmosphere.”
“Something poisonous?” Reverend Thresher said. “Something blasphemous, you mean! Angels in filthy underwear! The Altairi obviously refused to go any farther into that den of iniquity, and they sat down in protest. Even aliens know sin when they see it.”
“I don’t agree, Dr. Jarvis,” Dr. Short said, ignoring Reverend Thresher. “Why would the air in the mall have a different composition from the air in a museum or a sports arena? We’re looking for variables here. What about sounds? Could they be a factor?”
“Yes,” I said. “The Altairi were—”
“Did you get the surveillance tapes, Miss Yates?” Dr. Morthman cut in. “Go through and cue them up to the point just before the Altairi sat down. I want to see what they were looking at.”
“It wasn’t what they were looking at,” I said. “It was—”
“And call the mall and get samples of their floor coverings,” he said. “You were saying, Dr. Short?”
I left the surveillance tapes and the lists of shoppers on Dr. Morthman’s desk, and then went to the audio lab, found a CD player, and listened to the songs: “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “White Christmas,” “Joy to the World”—
Here it was. “‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.’” Could the Altairi have thought the song was talking about the descent of their spaceship? Or were they responding to something else entirely, and the timing was simply coincidental?
There was only one way to find out. I went back to the main lab, where Dr. Wakamura was sticking lighted candles under the Altairi’s noses. “Good grief, what is that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
“Bayberry magnolia,” he said.
“It’s awful.”
“You should smell sandalwood violet,” he said. “They were right next to Candle in the Wind when they sat down. They may have been responding to a scent from the store.”
“Any response?” I said, thinking their expressions, for once, looked entirely appropriate.
“No, not even to spruce watermelon, which smelled very alien. Did Dr. Morthman find any clues on the security tapes?” he asked hopefully.
“He hasn’t looked at them yet,” I said. “When you’re done here, I’ll be glad to escort the Altairi back to their ship.”
“Would you?” he said gratefully. “I’d really appreciate it. They look exactly like my mother-in-law. Can you take them now?”
“Yes,” I said, and went over to the Altairi and motioned them to follow me, hoping they wouldn’t veer off and go back to their ship since it was nearly nine o’clock. They didn’t. They followed me down the hall and into the audio lab. “I just want to try something,” I said and played them “While Shepherds Watched.”
“‘While shepherds watched their flocks,’” the choir sang. I watched the Altairi’s unchanging faces. Mr. Ledbetter was wrong, I thought. They must have been responding to something else. They’re not even listening. “‘. . . by night, all seated . . .’”
The Altairi sat down.
I’ve got to call Mr. Ledbetter, I thought. I switched off the CD and punched in the number he’d written on my hand. “Hi, this is Calvin Ledbetter,” his recorded voice said. “Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now,” and I remembered too late that he’d said he had a rehearsal. “If you’re calling about a rehearsal, the schedule is as follows: Thursday, Mile-High Women’s Chorus, eight P.M., Montview Methodist, Friday, chancel choir, eleven A.M., Trinity Episcopal, Denver Symphony, three P.M.—” It was obvious he wasn’t home. And that he was far too busy to worry about the Altairi.
I hung up and looked over at them. They were still sitting down, and it occurred to me that playing them the song might have been a bad idea, since I had no idea what had made them stand back up. It hadn’t been the Muzak because it had been turned off, and if the stimulus had been something in the mall, we could be here all night. After a few minutes, though, they stood up, doing that odd pulled-string thing, and glared at me. “‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night,’” I said to them, “‘all seated on the ground.’”
They continued to stand.
“Seated on the ground,” I repeated. “Seated. Sit!”
No response at all.
I played the song again. They sat down right on cue. Which still didn’t prove they were doing what the words told them to do. They could be responding to the mere sound of singing. The mall had been noisy when they first walked in. “While Shepherds Watched” might have been the first song they’d been able to hear, and they’d sit down whenever they heard singing. I waited till they stood up again and then played the two preceding tracks. They didn’t respond to Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” or to Julie Andrews singing “Joy to the World.” (Or to the breaks between songs.) There wasn’t even any indication they were aware anyone was singing.
“‘While shepherds watched their flocks by-y night . . .’” the choir began. I tried to stay still and keep my face impassive, in case they were responding to nonverbal cues I was giving them. “‘. . . ah-all seated—’”
They sat down at exactly the same place, so it was definitely those particular words. Or the voices singing them. Or the particular configuration of notes. Or the rhythm. Or the frequencies of the notes.
Whatever it was, I couldn’t figure it out tonight. It was nearly ten o’clock
. I needed to get the Altairi back to their spaceship. I waited for them to stand up and then led them, glaring, out to their ship, and went back to my apartment.
The message light on my answering machine was flashing. It was probably Dr. Morthman, wanting me to go back to the mall and take air samples. I hit play. “Hi, this is Mr. Ledbetter,” the choir director’s voice said. “From the mall, remember? I need to talk to you about something.” He gave me his cellphone number and repeated his home phone, “In case it washed off. I should be home by eleven. Till then, whatever you do, don’t let your alien guys listen to any more Christmas carols.”
There was no answer at either of the numbers. He turns his cell phone off during rehearsals, I thought. I looked at my watch. It was ten-fifteen. I grabbed the yellow pages, looked up the address of Montview Methodist, and took off for the church, detouring past the Altairi’s ship to make sure it was still there and hadn’t begun sprouting guns from its ports or flashing ominous lights. It hadn’t. It was its usual Sphinx-like self, which reassured me. A little.
It took me twenty minutes to reach the church. I hope rehearsal isn’t over and I’ve missed him, I thought, but there were lots of cars in the parking lot, and light still shone though the stained-glass windows. The front doors, however, were locked.
I went around to the side door. It was unlocked, and I could hear singing from somewhere inside. I followed the sound down a darkened hall.
The song abruptly stopped, in the middle of a word. I waited a minute, listening, and when it didn’t start up again, began trying doors. The first three were locked, but the fourth opened onto the sanctuary. The women’s choir was up at the very front, facing Mr. Ledbetter, whose back was to me. “Top of page ten,” he was saying.
Thank goodness he’s still here, I thought, slipping in the back.
“From ‘O hear the angel voices,’” he said, nodded to the organist, and raised his baton.
“Wait, where do we take a breath?” one of the women asked. “After ‘voices’?”
“No, after ‘divine,’” he said, consulting the music in front of him on the music stand, “and then at the bottom of page thirteen.”