T’Fees spoke, evidently questioning. Vess said he asked what the humans hoped to see while on Pistach.
Chad said they hoped to see the Fresco and the people of Pistach-home.
T’Fees spoke again, at length, and Chiddy turned pale. Pallor among the Pistach was a very light and sickish sort of green and was quite unmistakable. Chiddy was shaken.
“What?” Benita demanded of Vess.
“He says it is a good time for you to see the Fresco, for he and his people have come to clean it!”
Benita looked helplessly at Chad and he at her. At first it meant nothing to either of them, but then the wordsfresco an dcleaning clicked in Benita’s mind, reminding her of how Chiddy had reacted when she had spoken of cleaning the Sistine Chapel, removing, in the process, interpolations that Michelangelo had never put there.
She whispered to Chad, telling him about it. “Chiddy turned quite pale at the time. Could this threatened cleaning bode something similar? Some unexpected change?”
“How long,” Chad murmured to Vess, “since the Fresco has been cleaned?”
“It has never been cleaned,” he gargled, looking down toward his lower appendages. “It is too holy to clean.”
“And do the people light candles before it?” Benita asked, still with the Sistine Chapel in mind.
“Oh,” he moaned. “Yes. Yes. Quiria of candles, veritable jecaloms of candles, over ocalecs and ocalecs of years.”
Chad didn’t get it. He bent toward her, and she whispered again. He straightened up, looking stern. “If it cleans up saying something different than they’ve always thought . . . ?”
“Chiddy and Vess evidently think something like that could happen,” Benita muttered. “Remember the fuss over the Dead Sea Scrolls? There was all that secrecy and tabooing, remember? Because the orthodox religions were scared to death the scrolls might say something contrary to accepted theology!”
“I remember,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “It might be taken as a desecration. Remember what happened to Indira Gandhi after the attack on the Sikh Temple. And all the recent Moslem-Hindu riots . . .”
“I know,” she murmured.
T’Fees spoke again. Chiddy approached him, and the two of them moved away, talking together. Vess told the humans to stay where they were, beside the ship, as details of the visit were being worked out, then he went to join the discussion. Carlos had been standing mulishly between Chad and Benita, thus far silent but glowering with evident distaste at everyone and everything.
“I’m not going to waste my time standing around here,” he muttered at his mother. “All these bugs can just stuff it.”
Chad turned toward him, saying almost in a whisper, “The big one is a rebel, Carlos. The other big ones are soldiers. I’m sure they have weapons. If you do something out of hand, they will probably kill you.”
Carlos tried to sneer, swiveling his eyes between Benita and Chad. Though Benita saw no reason for T’Fees to kill him, she knew the temptation. “He’s right, Carlos. If we play it cool, nobody gets hurt and we’ll be going home in a few days.” She swallowed, hoping she was right.
“All this is your fault,” he snarled angrily. “If you hadn’t gotten me mixed up in this, I wouldn’t even be here.”
Benita moved to put herself between Carlos and the multitude, keeping her voice low. “Carlos, listen. We’re not in control here. The people in control are the people you’re getting ready to insult. You can be charming when you choose to be. It would be a good idea to be charming now.”
“Or what?” he growled.
Chad said quietly, over her shoulder, “When we return, those of us on this trip will be very important people. The TV shows will be bidding for us. The publishers will want to ghostwrite books for us. If you’re smart, if you play it right and get in good with these people, you’ll end up making a lot of money.”
Carlos’s face slowly changed, and Benita kept her face perfectly empty. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Being a VIP would suit Carlos to a tee. Couple that with money, and it would be his idea of paradise! Being important, being first in line, had been on Carlo’s agenda since he learned to walk and talk.