"They wear grass skirts in Polynesia," Galen Harbid remembered, hoping this would be a positive contribution.
"We're talking full lawn jacket here," Barley reported. "The emissary's got to be covered from head to toe, and even under-toe, so to speak. Wrapped in at least a solid quarter inch carpet of the stuff."
"What about the eyes and mouth?" Rolanda Lin questioned him.
"Everything," Barley replied. "Whoever it is will have to see through a mounted camera and speak through a surface mic. Not a millimeter of human body can show through."
"I don't know." Rolanda shook her head. "It sounds impossible."
"I can do it," Gayle Henderson spoke up. All eyes turned toward her as she stood and addressed the group.
"I used to do some weaving," she said, "and I did some experiments with plants at one point. I had this idea about wrapping roses within ivy within clover. It was for a highly classified project, but never mind about that. I just think I can do it. The Blue Grass was mine, by the way. I had a hunch about the stuff. It showed some peculiar properties when cultivated at low gravity."
"How long?" Maya Nguyen wanted to know. She was feeling the pressure from the planet below, and felt that time was not on their side. This could be their last private meeting before the twenty-four seven surveillance kicked in again.
"It depends on the emissary, I suppose," Gayle replied. "The smaller the better, I'd think."
"That's too bad," Maya told her. "What if it's someone, let's say someone tall?"
"Like Fydia?" Gayle asked.
"Exactly Fydia," Maya said. This caused another round of murmuring which Maya brought to an end by asking if anyone had any objections. After all, she told them, Fydia had been the least affected by The New Guy the first time around and besides, she was an expert on first contact, which this still was, even if it was with a human male. No one objected. Fydia smiled. She had been hoping she'd be picked.
"Five hours," Gayle said after making some mental calculations. “I'll need some help, though."
"Naturally," Maya said. "Anything you need, just ask anyone."
This time the round of muttering was affirmative and hopeful as people raised their hands and politely informed Gayle of their constant availability.
"I can start the growing," she said, "but then I'll need a few harvesters. While they watch the grass grow until it's ready for picking, I'll need some Builders to help construct a few looms. Then I'll need a couple of weavers to join me. Anyone with the relevant experience please follow me now. We'll be working out of Moon Base Two."
She turned and headed towards the structure in question. All of the Builders and several other volunteers went with her. Fydia wanted to join them, but Maya held her back.
"We should talk," she said. "Gayle will send for you when she's ready for a fitting."
Fydia, Rolanda, Maya and Rayburn Willis, the original diplomatic corps, held a separate meeting, this time to discuss Fydia's strategy. They had to get through to him somehow. They were willing to try anything at this point.
Chapter Fifteen
Gayle Henderson's project would have made scientific history had anyone on Earth been paying much attention to anyone on the Moon. Instead, Moon achievements were quickly discarded as having been accomplished by "those people". American audiences wanted nothing to do with them, even as Mister Wonderful cranked up his massive public relations machinery with the intent of garnishing a large viewing public for his upcoming show, tentatively entitled 'Showdown on Moon Base Twelve: The Takening". Mister Wonderful, also known as Wilbur Cranshaw, was a smallish gentleman with a large head, always very well dressed and extremely photogenic with his slick thin black hair and throwback pencil mustache. His uncanny resemblance to Walt Disney was not unintentional. While Gayle and her team were working frantically to construct a complete body suit woven out of some of the finest turf known to mankind, Mister Wonderful was constructing all sorts of theoretical narratives involving spies, secret agents, Albania, and plots to set off a chain detonation which would engulf the entire asteroid field in a fireworks spectacular long since predicted by the ancient Yanomamo.
Gayle's concern was more immediate - the grafting of plant material onto nylon so that it formed an impenetrable weave. There could not be a gap of even a millimeter, so the layering and intricacy required was demanding. While the looms were being built and the grass grown she was envisioning multiple scenarios, but it wasn't until she took a brief nap that the perfect solution came to her mind. She later described it as a "mandala moment" when the entire universe and a previous hallucinogenic experience conspired to inform her of an interlocking scheme that would have confounded even the great Escher. She grabbed one of Fydia's extra-large onesies and began to sketch out her dream.
The project had other aspects worthy of accolades as well. Instead of eyes, remote wireless cameras were placed on the outer part of the head and correspondingly connected screens were placed inside. Fydia would hardly know that she wasn't seeing out of her own sockets but through tcp/ip addressable ones. A similar technique was used for speaking and hearing. When Fydia was finally stuffed into the costume, and enduring a number of gentle "jolly green giant" taunts, she was ready to march. And she did parade up and down Moon Base Two for a quarter of an hour or so while other scientists made measurements and calculations and performed a number of tests upon her. The suit was more than tailor-made. It was a genuine marvel. She was completely encased in the growing green stuff (which was rooting in the nylon, thanks to a feat of truly incomprehensible genetic manipulation). Her only concern was how long it would be until she had to be mowed!
The work had a side benefit as well. The entire crew of the Moon Base had come together to participate and contribute, and their camaraderie, which had always been a strength, was even more formidable than ever. The importance of team chemistry cannot be overstated for those who are spending at least a decade together in isolation on an inhospitable extra-terrestrial orb. The whole team, except of course for the sleeping Pete, gathered to send her off with all their hopes in this final pre-televised quest to discover the origin and purpose of The New Guy in Moon Base Twelve.
Chapter Sixteen
Fydia had several tasks on her list and she was determined to check them off in order. She knew that the installation of video was of great importance to the people back at Mission Control, and she intended to get that over with first. She entered Moon Base Twelve and ignored The New Guy while she set about this job. The cameras looked like nothing more than transparent bandages, and she slapped them in various locations on the walls and ceilings all around the hut. The New Guy looked on from his perch on the couch, where he had once again been sleeping. If he was bewildered by her activities, that was nothing compared to his shock at her appearance. He had no idea what this very large creature was that was stomping around his living quarters, smacking various parts of its structure here and there for no obvious purpose.
"We've met before," Fydia finally spoke as she stopped and stood directly in front of him, no more than a few feet away. He was still sitting, and started up at her, saying nothing.
"My name is Fydia Sooth," she said. "I was one of the group who visited you recently. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay very long. There is something about you, or about this place, now that I think of it ..."
Her voice trailed off as the idea occurred to her that she ought to inspect the room for any unusual items that The New Guy might have brought with him. There may be some substance, some device that was responsible for causing the nerve attacks, but her inspection did not take long. There were very few things in Moon Base Twelve. It was not only a small place, but a largely empty one as well. Aside from the couch there were practically no furnishings. The walls and ceilings were bare except for the cameras she'd just glued on, and the floor was flat and uncovered, concealing nothing, just the random pile of junk the Builders had left over.
"It was just a thought," she spoke again. "Listen.
A lot of people are interested in you. Do you understand that?"
"People?" It was the first word he'd said since she had entered. He was struggling to make any sort of connection between Fydia and the idea of people. Now that she was wandering about, he stood up and vaguely followed her, shuffling his feet in one direction or another in a sort of ambivalent dance.
"Yes, people," she said. "You know, like you, like me, like the others who came here. Humans. You do understand me, don't you?"
"I am human," The New Guy said, and there was something about his tone that caused Fydia to stop, and focus on his eyes. Was he stating a fact, or asking a question?
"Human," she repeated. "Aren't you hungry? Thirsty? I notice you do sleep but I haven't seen you do much of anything else."
"Humans sleep a lot," The New Guy replied.
"What about food?" she asked again. "I don't see any here. In fact, there's nothing here. You came here with nothing? No equipment? No supplies?"
"I hear your words," he shrugged, "but without seeing your face it's difficult to understand."
"Sorry about that," she said. "But I can't show you my face right now. Later, when I get back. We have two-way video now. We'll be able to talk through that. You see? We'll show up on that wall over there where you can see and hear us."
"I don't know," he said with a sigh. "That's not how it's supposed to work."
"How what's supposed to work?"
"Learning," he said, sitting down and closing his eyes, "I am to interact and learn."
Fydia fell silent. The New Guy looked like he was about to go to sleep again and in fact he lay down on the couch and began to breathe slowly and deeply.
"Wait a minute," she said, and she walked over to him and pushed his shoulder until he opened his eyes again.
"You're here on a mission, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you mean" he said as he tried to shake her hand loose but her grip was too tight. He squinted his eyes tightly together and trained them on her head. His whole body seemed to shake with concentration. Fydia saw this but felt nothing. She had questions.
"You said you're here to interact and learn. Learn what? About the Base? About us? Who sent you? What do you want to learn?"
"Humans," he sniffed. Fydia released her hold on his shoulder and stepped back.
"Maya?" she murmured, "Are you hearing this?"
"Ten-four," came the captain's voice in her ear.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking? This is contact."
"Could be," Maya said. "That was interesting about the food. Hadn't thought of that."
"Something else," Fydia said, retreating to the far wall in case The New Guy was listening. "The way he was looking at me just now. He was searching for something, trying to do something. Of course! That's it!"
She took three long strides back to the couch and loomed over The New Guy.
"You were trying to read my mind just now, weren't you?"
The New Guy squinted at her again.
"Whatever that is on your head is hiding you," he told her.
"Yes, of course. Telepathy. Maya, I think that's what's causing the nerve damage. When he reads your mind."
"Okay," Maya drawled, sighing. "Could be, I suppose, if there even was such a thing as mind-reading. Machines can do it to some extent of course, we know that. They can reconstruct recently heard words out of brain waves, that is, but it's still a long way from actual spur-of-the-moment, live mind-reading."
"For us it is," Fydia countered. "But he's not one of us. I don't think he's human."
"I heard that," The New Guy said, popping up from the couch. "You're mistaken. I am to be human. Completely and totally. One hundred percent. I was made to be entirely human."
"Made," Fydia jumped at the word. "Yes, but by who, and why?"
"I already told you why," Martin said. "To learn."
"But who made you?" she demanded.
The New Guy thought for a few moments, and then said, with a shrug,
"I don't know."
Chapter Seventeen
"It doesn't know anything," Fydia reported upon her return to Moon Base One. "His name isn't even Martin. That's just something he picked up from someone's mind."
"I think it was me," Michael Gelano spoke up. "I remember thinking he looked like a guy I once knew named Martin, and then he went and said that's what his name was."
"He can definitely read minds," Fydia acknowledged. "In fact, it might be the only thing he CAN do."
Fydia had returned a hero, having solved the riddle, if not the problem of what to do with The New Guy. Now everyone was together for what they all agreed would hopefully be the last time for a long time.
"So basically he's a probe," Maya put in
"Pretty much," said Fydia. "He can read minds and store the information but it doesn't seem like he's in contact with anyone or anything else at the moment. Still, we don't know how he got here, or who sent him, or anything else."
"There could be a whole army out there waiting for his report," Marco Velez suggested, to a chorus of groans.
"Maybe they're all giant cockroaches," Barley MacDunhill suggested sarcastically.
"Or lizards," said Rayburn Willis. "Aren't they usually lizards?"
"Or how about little green men?" volunteered Redmon Chanoo.
"We have no idea," Maya Nguyen spoke up with some authority in her voice to quiet the chuckles now echoing around the room.
"And there's nothing we can do about it," she concluded. "We'll report what we know to General O'Nail and see what they want to do."
"That's the army we're most likely to see," worried Demaryius Ballantyne. "Our own, come to blow us all up."
"Not likely," Maya said. "It would cost too much, and anyway, Martin doesn't know it, but he's about to go live worldwide on the Mister Wonderful show."
"They're not going to like it," Fydia said. "All he wants to do is sleep."
"It'll be like Pete TV," Galen Harbid chimed in.
"Okay, okay, that's enough," Maya declared. "I don't think there's anything else to be gained here. My own advice is for everyone to forget all about it and just get back to our lives as best we can."
"Maybe we ought to seal it up," Rayburn Willis suggested. Maya nodded.
"We don't know if he can get out," she agreed, "or even if he can breathe the air out there, but just in case, he's a menace, so I think you're right."
"I can block it off easily," Galen offered, and Gelano said he'd help, so the two of them went off to barricade Moon Base Twelve. There was no point in anyone else going in anymore, and they certainly didn't want "Martin" coming out and wandering around freely.
General O'Nail was inclined to agree when he received the news. At first he blustered in disbelief and questioned Fydia extensively. He'd watched the recording of her visit several times and finally came to the same conclusion they all did. This was no human but a humanoid probe, placed by some force and by some unknown other into their midst for some unknown reason.
"Learning, he keeps saying," O'Nail muttered. "That would seem to imply that they, whoever they are, don't feel they know enough about us yet."
"They knew enough to make a construct," Willis said.
"A copy of sorts," added Barley. "As my program clearly demonstrated, the probe is a composite of four different human beings, all of whom I named individually as you will recall."
"We recall," said Willis huffily, already tiring of his latest companion. Barley was okay for the most part, mild and easy going, except when it came to anyone demonstrating the slightest doubt about the results his software produced. Then he became quite the arrogant ass.
"So how did they get access to those four individuals?" Maya mused thoughtfully.
"All unknown, dammit!" snorted the General. "They could be among us even now, more of them like this Martin creature, just sitting there, maybe in a classroom, maybe in an office suite, sitting there not saying much just listening and gathering information, pret
ending to be human. Hell, you wouldn't even know! Could be my own damn secretary, tell you the truth! Never says a word but yessir and nossir."
"You can't trust the quiet types," he concluded.
"So what do we do now?" Maya asked and the General shrugged.
"Damned if I know," he said. "It'll have to go to the President, no doubt about that. And there's Mister Wonderful too, of course."
"That's about to happen," Maya said. "The lights go on at oh nine hundred hours."
"That a fact?" the General beamed. "Guess I sort of did push you into that one, didn't I? Oh well, no harm done, I suppose. Or hope. Or pray," he added, growing more agitated every moment as it dawned on him that an alien tool was about to dominate the global airwaves for potentially the first time ever. He had memories of certain Christmas variety shows which made him wonder about that fact.
"I suppose I'd better make sure it's all okay with the President," he murmured and hung up.
Chapter Eighteen
It so happened that President Spud Goodman was not only a big fan of Mister Wonderful, they were also old friends. Wonderful had been a major Republican donor in his earlier life as a billionaire media mogul, an incarnation not well known to his multitude of admirers. They were largely unaware of his role behind the scenes in the origins of the Frantic News Network, a twenty-four-seven shouting frenzy that had been dominating the airwaves for some time. FNN had a way of whipping up new hysterias around the clock, and Mister Wonderful could hardly contain his glee when his good buddy President Goodman relayed the information about The New Guy.
"A freaking Alien with a capital A? Are you freaking kidding me?" Wonderful chortled in the East Room where he and the President were dining on a nice fresh lobster salad.
"That's what they tell me," Goodman said, unsure why this was such good news. After all, his own imagination was running in the same wild direction as probably every other man who'd grown up with crappy science fiction books and movies. Aliens were always disgusting, vile, and out to destroy mankind. This new development was not, Goodman felt, likely to turn out to help his upcoming bid for re-election. It's true he thrived on controversy, especially those which were manufactured out of nothing by his friends at FNN, but they were generally directed at specific, Earthly enemies, such as the other political party, its leaders and its members. He was already suspicious of the news, seeing as it came directly from those faggy pinko pagan vegetarians on the Moon. "How in the hell did THAT ever happen," he was asking himself for the millionth time, although he was pretty damn sure it was a conspiracy. He had fired every single member of that commission, and tried to harass them all into utter poverty and disgrace, but the damage was already done, and one of them had even managed to snag himself a spot up there. And to think he had once trusted that man!