Page 34 (1/2)

She still felt that they were in the presence of soher power by one definition or another, and she was hu what she had seen in the pond, the pulsing luh the wall, and the words that kept shi into view on the tablet, she would have been hopelessly stupid if she had not been awed

Undeniably, however, her sense of wonder was dulled by the feeling that this entity was structuring the encounter like an old movie or TV script

With a sarcastic note in his voice, Jim had said that he had too little experience with alien contact to have developed any expectations that could be disappointed But that was not true Having grown up in the sixties and seventies, he had been as media-saturated as she had been

They’d been exposed to the saazines and books; science fiction had been a major influence in popular culture all their lives He had acquired plenty of detailed expectations about what alien contact would be like-and the entity in the as playing to all of them Holly’s only conscious expectation had been that a real close encounter of the third kind would be like nothing the novelists and screenwriters ihts of fantasy, because when referring to life from another world, alien meant alien, different, beyond easy comparison or comprehension

"Okay," she said, " our modern myths as a convenient way to present itself to us, a way to make itself comprehensible to us Because it’s probably so radically different from us that we could never understand its true nature or appearance"

"Exactly," Jiht we see in the walls? THE LIGHT IS ME

Holly didn’t wait for Jim to write the next question She addressed the entity directly: "How can you h a wall?" Because the alien seemed such a stickler about for to the written question-reply format It answered her at once: I CAN BECOME PART OF ANYTHING, MOVE WITHIN IT, TAKE SHAPE FROM IT WHENEVER I CHOOSE

"Sounds a little like bragging," she said

"I can’t believe you can be sarcastic at a ti sarcastic," she explained "I’ to understand"

He looked doubtful

To the alien presence, she said, "You understand the proble with this, don’t you?" On the tablet: YES

She ripped away that page, revealing a fresh one Increasingly restless and nervous, but not entirely sure why, Holly got to her feet and turned in a circle, looking at the play of light in the walls as she formulated her next question "Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?" No answer appeared on the tablet

She repeated the question

The tablet reuess"

She felt a bead of cold sweat trickle out of her right armpit and down her side, under her blouse A childlike wonder still worked in her, but fear was on the rise again So iving theer on what spooked her

On his own tablet, Jim quickly wrote another question, and Holly leaned down to read it: Did you appear to me in this rooet it? YES

"Don’t bother writing your questions," Holly said "Just ask theestion, and she was surprised that he had persisted with his pen and tablet even after seeing that the questions she asked aloud were answered He seemed reluctant to put aside the felttip and the paper, but at last he did "Why did you , Holly could easily read the bold words that appeared on the yellow tablet: YOU WERE NOT READY TO REMEMBER

"Unnecessarily cryptic," she ht It e, put it with the others, and paused, chewing his lip, evidently not sure what to ask next Finally he said, "Are you male or female?" I AM MALE

"More likely," Holly said, "it’s neither It’s alien, after all, and it’s as likely to reproduce by parthenogenesis"

I AM MALE, it repeated

Jis folded, an undiminished look of wonder on his face, more boylike now than ever

Holly did not understand why her anxiety level was soaring while Jim continued to bounce up and doell, virtually-with enthusiasht

He said, "What do you look like?" WHATEVER I CHOOSE TO LOOK LIKE

"Could you appear to us as a ?" YES

"As a cat?" YES

"As a beetle?" YES

Without the security of his pen and tablet, Jim seemed to have been reduced to inane questions Holly half expected him to ask the entity what its favorite color hether it preferred Coke or Pepsi, and if it liked Barry Manilow music

But he said, "How old are you?" I AM A CHILD

"A child?" Jim responded "But you told us you’ve been on our world for ten thousand years"

I AM STILL A CHILD

Ji-lived?" WE ARE IMMORTAL

"Wow"

"It’s lying," Holly told him

Appalled by her effrontery, he said, "Jesus, Holly!" "Well, it is"

And that was the source of her renewed fear-the fact that it was not being straight with thearded them with enormous contempt In which case, she probably should have shut up, been er it

Instead she said, "If it were really immortal, it wouldn’t think of itself as a child It couldn ’t think that way about itself Infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood-those are age categories a species concerns itself with if it has a finite lifespan If you’re inorant, uneducated, but you aren’t born young because you’re never really going to get old"

"Aren’t you splitting hairs?" Jim asked al to us"

"Maybe its use of the word child’ was just another way it was trying to make its alien nature more understandable"

YES

"Bullshit," Holly said

"Dae froe, Hollythrough it Seen close up, they were quite beautiful and strange, not like a s phosphorescent fluid or fiery streams of lava, but like scintillant swarled points not unlike her analogy of lu fish

Holly half expected the wall in front of her to bulge suddenly

Split open Give birth to a monstrous form

She wanted to step back Instead she moved closer Her nose was only an inch froe and flux and whirl of the

There was no beat froht and shadow across her face

"Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?" she asked

After a few seconds, Jim spoke from behind her: "No answer"