THE CRADLED BLOSSOM

1563 4D

The emergency communicator the alien had named looked to her like a potted plant with one large brown bud. They stood in a tiny darkened closet just off the atrium entrance to the domehall. Holding the pot between its bushy hands, the alien said, “Take hold of the stem.” Frintar wrapped a hand around the stem of the plantlike object, and stabs of pain shot through her fingers. She yanked her hand back, nearly jerking the pot from the alien‘s grip, but could not break free.

The brown bud changed color, to red and then to pink. It bent toward Frintar and opened up. A face appeared at the center of the bloom, shining like a dim sun in a red sky. A man, not Arlen, someone she had never seen, a man with a seamed and browned and haggard face, and eyes that looked into her and through her. She said, “Who are you? What are you doing on the alien vessel?”

Beside her the alien made a croaking sound and dashed out of the closet. Before the man in the flower could speak, three more aliens returned, crowding into the cramped space beside Frintar. A rank fetor of fermentation attacked her nose.

The man in the flower said, “My name is Andrew Luce. We have the ship. We intend to keep the ship until you withdraw all forces from the South Power Complex, acknowledge our possession of same, and grant us concession to maintain and develop that complex for the good of the people of the City.” He paused for a breath, tilting his head to one side as if listening to someone else, and said, “We further condition return of the ship on immediate and permanent cessation of all relocation activity, and all sending of andros to the aliens.”

Frintar held her breath for a moment, then let it out slowly, steadily. “The aliens have threatened destruction of our entire human world here if the ship is not returned immediately. I am in their hands as I speak. I have no control over what they do. If I promise to meet all conditions you have set, will you return the ship to the port immediately?”

Luce smiled in a way that sent a chill through Frintar. “Let me show you something.” He closed his eyes, and his face disappeared. In the petals of the flower a sprawled body grew from a point of light; its face grew to fill the blossom. Arlen. “This is who we found on board the ship when I arrived here. Was Arlen aware of the alien threat of destruction? If so, why did he do what we have done?” Luce‘s face appeared again, still smiling. “I think the threat is nothing but a bluff. That’s the straight way to say it.”

A tickle of fear made Frintar swallow. The aliens pressed in on either side of her. One said, “Turhnushthenh ar Onnhasshakh.” Grunting sounds from the others.

She burst out, “There’s no reason to think they’re bluffing.”

Luce shook his head. “I have more reason to fear them than you. They’ve killed a whole human species on this world before. They’d do it if they thought it was necessary. Ask them.”

Frintar looked up and around. A mixture of nods. “Yes. That’s true.”

“Now ask them if they can do it without their ship.”

She looked up again. “Can you?” She tried to take in the look of the big jaws, the faceted eyes, the bush hands, strained to see how they reacted to the question. It would mean everything.

Their limbs and mouths and eyes perfectly still, they all nodded slowly and gravely in perfect unison. Yes. Now she knew, with only one nagging spark of doubt, that they lied.

She turned back to Andrew Luce, her face composed, feeling a kind of triumph mixed with guilt. Arlen was dead, or so it seemed. As powerful a force as he had been for order, he had destroyed so much and terrorized so many. And the aliens had been such friends to him; the deals and supplies they had traded were beyond wealth. Now—

“And what did they say?” Luce demanded.

“They said they could.”

“And do you believe them?”

This was difficult. She didn’t dare say no, not with them here. Best to let the body language do the job. She lowered her head and looked up from under her brows at the face in the flower, raising one eyebrow ever so slightly, speaking the words just a little too slowly. “Yes. I do.”

“Now we want one of them to speak with us. We will negotiate terms.”

Frintar looked up questioningly. One of the aliens reached out. Its bushy hand wrapped gently around hers, and she was let go. The bush of finger-tendrils cradled the blossom. Abruptly, Andrew Luce‘s face disappeared, and another face replaced it.

Frintar had once looked through the ancient holos in the City archives, thousands of years old. The holo on religions had held her attention; she had always remembered the shining face of one of the beings the religions, all of them, had called an ‘angel’. Here, now, was the living face of an angel, shining so brightly that, dazzled deep in her brain, she squinted and turned her face aside.

The alien holding the flower began a chittering sound that resembled anjive to Frintar‘s ears. It built in frequency and inflection until it rode at the upper reaches of her hearing. The aliens around her swayed, their fingers writhing in what might have been anxiety. Their smell grew, adding accents of geraniol and garlic and fruits, making her sway dizzily.

Silence. The alien holding the flower stem let go, and all of the aliens, without a word or a gesture to Frintar, left the closet.

In the darkness, Frintar fumbled and found the stem, gripping it and taking in the pain. The flower glowed again, and again the face of Andrew Luce appeared. “What happened?” she asked him. “They all left me alone with this communicator.”

He smiled, and this time his smile held a sadness that made her stop breathing to listen for his words. “They want to be together. They can’t hurt us. They’re all about to die.”