Runs had made a point. How were they going to announce themselves to the rest of the world? By calling up the local stations? “Pardon me, but my name’s Chad Collins and my sister and I have a couple of alien visitors staying with us who’d be willing to do an interview. You’ll send someone right over, won’t you?”
Indeed they would. Interviewers in white coats wearing solemn expressions.
The truth of it was that neither human nor Quozl had given much thought to the matter. Now that they were nearing Los Angeles, it was time to do so.
Chad was out of his depth and realized it. He intended to leave the mechanics of any confrontation to his sister. As head writer for a popular television show she’d probably been interviewed numerous times. She would know how to set things up, how to advise Runs and Seams.
The Quozl made excited sounds as the motor home turned off I-5 onto the 405, sliding down the interstate into the ocean of lights that marked the outer limits of the San Fernando Valley. It was after midnight and traffic was as light as it ever got in L.A. They attracted no curious stares.
“Are there any cities this big on Quozlene?” Mindy asked curiously.
“Oh yes.” Runs measured his reply carefully. “Or so the recordings indicate. I have never seen them for myself.”
Mindy eased into the slow lane after letting an eighteen-wheeler rumble past. “That’s right. I keep forgetting.”
She took the third exit after the Pass, winding through foothills among expensive new developments. At least she had a house, Chad reflected. They wouldn’t have to try and hide the Quozl in his apartment.
It was a spacious tile-roofed two-story, much bigger than his sister needed but in keeping with her position and income. The extensive landscaping shielded the place on three sides. The lot was large enough to offer a modicum of privacy.
Which did not matter because the house was not empty.
“Hiya, sweets!” The brash hello greeted them as they followed Mindy into the tiled entry hall. “Where ya been? I expected you weeks ago.”
Mindy strode purposefully into her den. “How did you get in here?”
Arlo uncoiled from the couch. “You gave me a key. We’re engaged, remember?”
“I’m trying not to,” she replied frostily.
“Now, sweets.” His words were as reassuring as WD-40 to a cranky hinge. “No need to panic. I know what I’m doing. It’s all for the best, believe me.”
“You lied to me. You said you’d keep the secret. You promised, Arlo.”
He looked past her. “Can’t keep secrets very long if you’re going to truck ’em all over the country. The one on the left I know.” He nodded at Runs-red-Talking. “The female I don’t recognize.”
As Chad hurriedly shut the front door behind them, Arlo walked up to Seams-with-Metal and reached for her face with his right hand. The clumsy effort to mimic the traditional Quozl greeting was somehow endearing in its awkwardness. Though Chad wasn’t prepared to credit the agent with so refined an emotion, another person might have called the attempt a sign of sensitivity.
Seams-with-Metal started to respond, then caught herself. “Who is this person?”
Walking past her into the den, Chad gestured derisively at the agent. “That’s my sister’s boyfriend, the one who provoked this trip. The one who’s caused all the concern. Arlo, meet Seams-with-Metal.”
“Charmed, pleased, delighted.” The agent offered the familiar honorifics without artfulness. More with artifice, Chad thought angrily as he searched the den and the room immediately adjacent.
“Where are the reporters? Where’s your hidden camera crew?”
“No reporters. That’s not the way to do this. Not yet. I didn’t want to go out on my own. I thought we’d all do it together, cooperate like.”
“Like hell,” Chad shot back.
“Don’t be that way, man.” Arlo turned to Runs-red-Talking. “I know that you see what I’m talking about. You can’t keep hidden forever. Sooner or later somebody’s gonna stumble on your place, wherever it is.” Chad thought the argument was familiar. With a shock he recalled using it himself, when trying to explain things to Runs.
“It’d be much better to reveal yourselves at your own speed. Well, at our own speed. Because there’s too much at stake here for me to just forget about it. So your speed and my speed are going to have to be our speed. But I’ve got your best interests at heart, believe me.”
“What heart?” Mindy wanted to know.
Arlo looked pained. “Sweets, let’s not forget who’s made herself a nice little nest egg off our Quozl friends, shall we? All I want is a tiny slice of the action. And I’ll do better by them than some Pulitzer-hungry reporter would, because I really do like the little guys. But this business of trying to hide in the ground for the next couple of hundred years is idiotico. Now’s the time to stand up and say howdy, because of all the goodwill your show has generated.” He was watching Seams-with-Metal.
“I didn’t expect to do anything right away. I wanted to talk it over with you and your brother first. The Quozl too.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
Arlo shrugged. “Kind of hard to, now. But yeah, I did. What I didn’t expect was for you to bring company.”
“I think Arlo is right.” Everyone turned to Runs-red-Talking.
Arlo beamed. “There. You see?”
“Runs, I don’t …” Chad began.
“My friend,” the Quozl said earnestly, “I have spent my whole life believing that wider contact with humans was vital to the continued health and development of the colony. My contacts with you and your sister over the past several cycles have only reinforced these feelings. The longer we spend hiding and afraid, the more difficult eventual contact will become. Already attitudes are stagnating, initiative ossifying. We must expand upward as well as outward if we are to become true citizens of this world.
“In this I know I am considered aberrant. The Council would disagree, though there are those in the colony who sympathize with my feelings. They dare not voice them aloud. Only I can do so, having made myself so invaluable they cannot do without me.
“Now that we are here, with a mandate from the Council to widen contact, I believe we should continue as planned. As friend Arlo has not revealed our existence we should be able to manage our introduction so very much more efficiently. I see no reason to change our plans.”
Seams-with-Metal glared at him. “The Council thought we had been betrayed. If they knew otherwise they would surely change our instructions.”
“But they do not know otherwise.”
“We will use the communicator to ask them how to proceed.”
“The great Looks-at-Charts was my relative. A scout uses his initiative. We will not use the communicator.” His ears bobbed instructively. “I have removed several important components without which it will not function.”
“You are a traitor.”
“I think otherwise. I am convinced the future will vindicate this choice of action.”
“No question about it.” Arlo wore a broad smile, hastily lost it at the look on Runs’s face. “I hereby offer my help.”
“Your help?” Mindy eyed him dubiously. “How can you help?”
“It’s an agent’s job to assist his clients.”
“Clients!” Chad couldn’t restrain himself. “Where the hell do you get off calling yourself …!”
“Any new celeb who wants his introduction to the media managed properly needs an agent. The Quozl are gonna be the biggest celebrities of the millennium.”
“I think I like you.” Runs walked over to shake Arlo’s hand. “I believe your friends misjudge you. I think you can help us.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Events were moving too rapidly for Chad. Arlo eyed him accusingly.
“What’s wrong, Chad? Want to keep the Quozl all to yourself?”
“That’s ridiculous. I want only what’s in their best interest, and …”
&
nbsp; “I know what is in our best interest.”
Everyone turned to look at Seams-with-Metal. In her left hand she held a small rectangular box, gripping it securely with five fingers. The other two pressed against a pair of depressions set in opposite ends of the object.
“This device is very powerful,” she calmly informed them as sweat began to trickle down Chad’s neck. “Within its effective radius it produces enough heat to carbonize bone. There will be nothing left to give away our presence.”
“Now please, just a moment.” Mindy pleaded even as she was retreating.
Seams-with-Metal was Quozl-calm. “This is the best solution. Only three humans know of our presence on Shiraz. All are present in this room. The individual who precipitated the crisis is also present.” She stared evenly at Runs-red-Talking. “The elimination will be clean. I was instructed to take this opportunity if it proferred itself.”
Runs appeared remarkably unperturbed. “You would be murdering five intelligent beings, yourself among them. No Quozl could do that.”
“No sane Quozl. I am different. Why do you think I was chosen to accompany you, Runs-red-Talking? I am an aberration, not unlike yourself. I can carry this thing through. I have no wish to die, but am willing to perish on behalf of a greater cause.” She turned to Chad and his sister.
“I apologize most extremely for this necessary action.” That was the Quozl for you, Chad thought wildly. Polite to the end. “Your excision close to the colony might have provoked anxious searches of the vicinity. Here your passing will generate no outcry, result in no intimate inspection threatening to the Burrows.”
“How do you know?” Mindy stammered, trying to bluff.
“Because we have studied your broadcasts and we understand how your procedures and minds would work in such an instance.”
Still Runs did not panic. Chad marveled at his self-control. “If you are different, as you say and as I have suspected, then you are more like me than you are the fossils who populate the Council. Therefore, you must suspect that the way I propose is the best for the future of the Quozl of Shiraz.”
“I know nothing of the kind. I know only what I was instructed to do if it seemed possible. Bis-mey-ohy-meene chaplo,” she finished in Quozl.
Her fingers dug into the depressions. Mindy screamed. Arlo dove for the fragile shelter of the couch. Chad closed his eyes and regretted that at the end he had nothing to say, to himself or anyone else.
A moment passed, another. He opened his eyes. Mindy stopped screaming. Arlo peered over the back of the couch.
Seams-with-Metal untensed and began to inspect the device. Runs-red-Talking strolled over and gently but firmly took it from her limp fingers. Instead of resisting she eyed him curiously.
“I do not understand why it failed to function.”
“It failed to function because I discovered it and divined its purpose some time ago,” Runs explained. “I removed several critical but tiny components, much as I did with the communicator. Did you think I spent the entire journey down here disassembling kitchen appliances?”
Mindy slumped in a chair, resting a hand on her forehead. Arlo started to let out a whoop, thought better of it, and kept silent.
Seams spoke quietly, ever polite. “It was never off my person. That means you had to invade my Sama while I slept. Without permission.”
“Not an impossible task for one as different as myself.” Runs smiled with his ears, the gesture expansive and unmistakable. “Those who provided you with this device may have forgotten that prior to escorting surface study groups my profession involved the repair of complex electronics.” He put the now harmless explosive device on an end table. “Dysfunctioning this was a simple matter for me.”
She took a step toward him. “Where is the missing component?” Chad held his breath, expecting to see for the first time one Quozl commit physical violence on another.
Runs’s ears continued to bob humorously. “Somewhere in the depths of a large river hundreds of human miles to the north of here. It will never be found. In the unlikely event that it is, it would be remarkable if its origin or function was suspected by the finder.”
Seams-with-Metal stopped. “I agree. Therefore, I must accept what you have done. Alternatives must be considered.” She turned to confront Arlo, who had finally emerged from behind the couch, and said as if nothing had happened, “If you can assist us in making successful wide contact we will be ever grateful.”
“Wait, wait!” Mindy rose from her chair, an expression of disbelief on her pretty face. “You just tried to kill us!”
“I know. It is a failure I regret. I could possibly slay one or two of you before I was myself incapacitated. This would be a futile gesture as the third would remain. Therefore, I am obliged by tradition and the instructions of the Samizene to put failure behind me and participate to the best of my ability in the next best course of action. This involves the cautious expansion of contact.” She turned back to Runs-red-Talking.
“You have achieved what you desired. I regret it most surely. Now, tell me how I may be of assistance.”
“I do not know myself.” Runs looked over at Arlo. “What does our experienced friend suggest?”
Friend? Chad took the seat his sister had vacated and tried to steady himself. Meanwhile Runs-red-Talking and the Quozl who had just tried to blow them all to bits cheerfully began discussing approaches to announcing the Quozl’s presence to the rest of mankind.
Mindy stumbled over to join her brother. “Look at her.” She indicated Seams-with-Metal. “How can she change positions like that?”
“The Quozl don’t believe in wasting time on the unachievable. When they decide to go with the flow, they do so unreservedly. We don’t have to worry about Seams-with-Metal anymore. Now if Runs had agreed with her we’d all be talcum powder by now.”
Having recovered rapidly from the near-assassination, Arlo was letting his thoughts race with possibilities.
“Basically you guys are and always have been primarily concerned about the kind of reception you’re going to get once you announce yourselves, right?”
“That is correct,” said Runs. “The goodwill generated toward Quozl by the television program will help, but we cannot be sure it will be sufficient to overcome all human xenophobic attitudes.”
“Right. But I think we’re on the right track talking about the show. It suggests to me that the best way to deal with this is on an informal basis.”
“You can’t announce the presence of alien beings on Earth ‘informally,’” Chad said sarcastically, but Runs and Arlo both ignored him.
“We need to keep the authorities out of it as much as possible,” Arlo was saying. “Put you across to John Q. Public before the brass hats have time to react. I could sneak you into the White House, but that doesn’t have the right feel.”
“This isn’t a product to be sold,” Chad reminded him.
“The hell it ain’t, Chad. You don’t know much about the real world, do you? Everything’s a product to be sold. Soap, cornflakes, philosophy, radial tires, religion, the value of the yen versus the buck. Everything. And that’s my business.” He started to give Runs a friendly tap on the shoulder, at the last instant remembered what it meant to enter a Quozl’s Sama uninvited.
“You don’t show up declaring that you want eternal peace and friendship with all mankind. You don’t sit down to negotiate long-winded treaties. You sell yourselves. Mindy’s show gives us a built-in audience to start with. Advertising, PR; that’s how you put yourselves across to Earth.”
“It may be so,” Seams conceded. “I have studied this.”
“No drawn-out negotiations.” Arlo was racing now. “You bypass the governments, and go straight to the people. We’ll make you so popular so fast that the xenophobic types won’t be able to lay a finger on you.”
“You’re as crazy as Runs is,” Chad blurted in frustration.
“Crazy?” Arlo grinned at him. “I’m in a crazy business, C
had. You have to be a little crazy to make it work. But give me one thing: I know people. I know what buttons to push, what strings to pull. Animated aliens, real aliens—the public doesn’t care if you sell it to them the right way. You want to make successful contact,” he said to the two intrigued Quozl, “you don’t go for the cover of Newsweek. You try for the Star and the Enquirer. You do the right talk shows, show up at the important openings. Believe me, the politicos will beg to be seen standing next to you.”
“Possibly the most important event in human history,” Chad muttered, “and you’re trivializing it.”
“Of course I am. Now you’ve got the idea, Chad. That’s how you make friends and important contacts quickly. Something that’s perceived as trivial isn’t perceived as a threat. Take religion today. The more people trivialize it, the weaker it becomes. We want the public to think of the Quozl as trivial, as all flash and no substance. As entertaining, but harmless.” He cocked a quizzical eye at Runs and Seams.
“You’re still not sure about all this, are you? Okay, I’ll prove it.”
Chad felt control slipping away. Years he’d spent meeting and talking to Runs-red-Talking, then introducing his sister, only to have this comparative stranger, this verbally facile, exceedingly shallow person, take over. He could see it happening, see it in the way Runs and Seams paid close attention to his words. And there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it.
That was not what mattered, though. What was important was whether or not his sister’s fiancé was right.
Arlo was mumbling to himself. “You’ll need to be incorporated, of course.”
“Incorporated?” Runs’s ears bobbed and dipped.
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle all the details. We’ll need lawyers, accountants, you’ll need a business manager to handle the colony’s income. There’ll be plenty of that, and not just from the show.” He glanced in Mindy’s direction but she was too numb or dazed to object. “My fee will be small. Minuscule, really. Considering your prospects that’ll be plenty. You can always be sure of a good agent, Runs, because if you fail he fails.”