“Well, I’m not!”
“Anyone the envoys ask for is automatically a dignitary, otherwise I wouldn’t be in on this.”
“I guess I’m flattered. What are they looking like now?”
“Who? The envoys?” He shook his head. “I’ve only seen them on that device. I wasn’t there when they met with the president. No one was but a couple of Secret Service men. He called a meeting of the Cabinet plus a few other people right afterward, and he invited me to be there, to explain about the cube. He says I have a reputation for outspoken veracity which will be badly needed. I guess I owe that to the fact I never had to be elected to anything! Tell the truth and shame the devil, as my ma used to say.”
“He explained about the cube? About me?”
“He didn’t use your name, neither did I, we just said a constituent brought it to a congressman, and we’ve sworn your congressman to silence, for whatever good that’ll do. The cube took us out into space again, and it showed them giving the cube to you, only it wasn’t your face. In any case, everyone saw something slightly different.”
She giggled, finding this surprisingly funny, and he gave her a reproachful look.
“Somehow, I can’t find the humor in it. Anyhow, tonight we’re having a catered supper at a safe house. Chad, up there in the front seat, is FBI, and they’re handling security.”
“The . . . envoys don’t want to appear in public?”
“According to what they told the president, they never appear to the public in person. Only to small groups, and only right at first. They’re assigned to visit races who have become interested in other intelligent life. The president thinks they’re here to invite us to join some interstellar federation.”
She shook her head doubtfully. “It’s possible, but I don’t think so, not right away anyhow.”
“Why not? It’s as likely as anything else.”
“Not really. It’s more like … if we discover a new race of people, some little tribe, say, down in the Amazon somewhere. The linguists and the anthropologists might go look at them, but no ambassador or head of state is going to travel down there and invite them to join the United Nations.”
He looked quite taken aback. “Why would they bother just looking at us? Surely they must want something.”
She smiled, thinking about it. “Maybe they’re just curious.”
The general had a very disturbed expression on his face as he said, “I can think of several reasons why someone would go visit a newly discovered tribe in the Amazon. Because they knew about herbal remedies that could be valuable to pharmaceutical companies. Because they were sitting on gigantic ore or oil deposits.
“Or, because the big lumber companies were coming, and the tribe wasn’t going to be there, or maybe anywhere, very long.”
And with that happy thought, they both fell silent, not speaking again until they reached their destination.
The dinner arrangements were fairly intimate and not at all pretentious. Benita was introduced to the president’s wife, and to the Secretary of State, both of whom seemed utterly unflappable but confessed to being excited by the whole affair. No one was very dressed up. The only other person Benita hadn’t met was a red-faced general from the Pentagon, James McVane, in full uniform and an angry expression. Chiddy and Vess had shown up in the guise of pleasant, plump, dark-skinned middle-aged women clad in saris, making a total of eight for dinner, plus the watchful men in the foyer and three liveried waiters, two moving around a table in the adjacent dining room, setting up a dinner service, and one serving cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the nicely furnished living room.
Benita received a hug from each alien, who also pressed her cheek with theirs, as if they were old friends. “Tonight we are Indira and Lara,” said the taller one in green. “Indira is in green and Lara is in red. This is the first step in our finding out about you.”
“Why did you choose to be women?” Benita whispered. The three of them were standing in a corner, closely observed but not intruded upon by the other guests.