Benita smiled dutifully, looked at her shoes, then at the ceiling, finding no help either place. She sighed. “I’ll do what I can. Really.”
She and Chad talked about it on the way home, both of them were in the backseat, behind dark-tinted windows, with someone else doing the driving. Now that the news people had seen her in Chad’s company, he was as much fair game as she was. •
Halfway home, she started crying. She was too much at the center of things. Without specific reason, the tears welled and spilled over. Chad put his arms around her and they sat that way for a while, just close. He offered her his handkerchief, and she wiped her face. When they got to the apartment, he sent the car away and came upstairs. She opened a bottle of wine, and they sat in the living room, looking between two boarded-up windows through a clear one that showed the Capitol dome.
“How do you get in touch with them?” he asked.
“Usually I just yell. Chiddy, I need you now!” She said it quite loudly. “If he agrees to take me, he may do it all at once, just boom. They do things like that.”
“You mean, they might take you suddenly, without me or any of the surveillance stuff?”
“If there is such stuff, you should get it here in a hurry, Chad,” she said. “Chiddy and Vess move awfully fast when they’re motivated.”
He went to the phone and made a call, then several more, taking notes as he did so. His last call was a ten-digit one. He spoke, listened, spoke, then turned to Benita with the phone still in his hand.
“Merilu?” he said. “She hung up on me. She says your husband alleges we’re involved sexually, right now, on CNN.”
“Bert? I thought the Inkleozese had him!” She turned to CNN, and there was Bert, a bit foggy around the eyes, but by heaven he had on a new suit, he was shaved, and he was being interviewed on national TV, and telling them all about his wife, old moocow Benita, who was being a sex slave to some aliens for the FBI.
She had barely time to get angry when the air turned cold, then warm, then wavy, and Chiddy materialized in a burst of light on the living room rug.
“Dear Benita,” ai said, patting her on the shoulder. Ai offered his hand to Chad, who took it. Chiddy was, no need to say, in his masculine human form.
“Look,” Benita cried, pointing to the TV. “What’s that about?”
“The Fluiquosm,” growled Chiddy. “They made that tape several days ago by planting an idea in his head, but they hadn’t used it yet. Now they are angry at having to leave Earth, so they sent it out to TV networks in a fit of resentment. It will be necessary to supplant that idea in his mind and then undo this damage.”
Chad asked, “Are the predators gone . . . ?”
Chiddy pinched his lips and looked severe. “They have departed. As I said, they were very angry about it, but they have definitely departed. None of them wants to tangle with the Inkleozese.” He sat down beside Benita. “What is the emergency?”
She told him, everything tumbling out at once, the committee and Morse and what the president wanted her to do, and why it was necessary.
He stared at both the humans thoughtfully. “Before any of this is taken care of, Imust g o back and finish our discussions with the Inkleozese. They are most annoyed at the SHLQ, as are we, and steps must be taken to keep them in line and to make your former inceptor withdraw his stupidities. While this is being accomplished, we will think on this business of taking you to Pistach-home.
“Mr. Riley, be kind enough to get together whatever you need to take with you. Also, since gender mistrust seems to play a part in this whole matter, we agree it would indeed be wise for you to accompany Benita to my home world. If there is any possibility of their assuming you have a … relationship between you that is unacceptable, please recommend a third party to come along as well. A ‘chaperon,’ I think it is called. Though I would be happy to serve in that capacity, my word might not be trusted. By the way, I assume you are male, in all respects, heterosexual, functioning, and so forth?”