"You always were the one to cause problems." Arlene Bermond stood arms crossed just left of the exact center of the room, a bear in a cave.
"You think I asked for this?" Marian looked up and found herself once again a little girl under the stern gaze of the big sister. Looming as she always did in her mind—except now Arlene was huge, a physical confirmation of the mental picture.
"You couldn't have done better if you had planned it. Right at a critical junction in my life you come along with this and throw everything out of whack."
"For God's sake, Arlene." Marian stood up, to no advantage. "I did not—this, this . . . just happened."
"Just happened," Arlene snorted. She dropped her arms and stepped toward a wall. The straight blue skirt falling to her ankles made her figure almost a solid mass. "Nothing 'just happens,' dear sister. Everything has a reason—I've told you that a thousand times. You consciously decided to go see this thing. Probably another whim." She let out a long sigh. "You are so irresponsible."
Marian felt a flush grow on her cheeks. "I have not bothered you for twelve years. I would not bother you now except for . . . for this."
"Oh, you'd think of something." Arlene adjusted her glasses. "Christ, Marian, what am I supposed to do now?"
"There's been some suggestions we should be released to the custody of our closest relatives—"
"Custody?" The word flew out like a chicken bone suddenly freed from her throat. "I'm supposed to take custody of you? Blast, Marian, I am in no mood for you again. I've just got Micah at home, I'm about to see him off to college, and Faith and Daniel are off on their own. The farm is clicking along very nicely, thank you, after years of sweat and meticulous planning. And now you want to throw this wrench into the works."
Marian fought to keep the tears back. "I can't hold a job this way. I can't drive a car, I probably won't be able to buy a beer. I don't think the government, or somebody, is going to let me live by myself. I need your help. It won't be like raising a child. I won't need schooling—"
"I heard the scientists haven't decided on that. And if you don't go to school, that means you'll be underfoot and in the way. You can't drive a car, you can't drive a tractor." Reflections on Arlene's glasses blocked any view of the eyes that regarded her. "For the love of Christ, Marian, why did you have to go into that space ship?"
She looked at the floor again. "I was . . . curious."
Arlene snorted. "Curious."
"Look, I have some money saved, not a lot, but enough to ease a financial burden on you. For a while, until we can figure something out—"
"We have to figure something out damned quick. Too many details are waiting for me at the farm."
"Please, Arlene. I need your help."
Her sister continued to glare down at Marian, feet planted, arms crossed again.
I'm an adult. I do not need to fear her.
"Yes," Arlene said. "I'm going to have to figure something out very quickly."
* * *
When the door began to open, Aaron had to quash a wild impulse to hide, or to seek a better spot to stand on, or lie down on, or sit on, or lean against; perhaps he should strike a cool pose and act nonchalant. Instead, he rooted himself to the spot next to the bed. He faced the door and hoped the panic in his head was not molding the muscles in his face.
Janessa wore a light white skirt, slightly pink blouse, and white jacket. The ensemble was cool and summery. She stopped short when she first saw him and stared a second. Then she deliberately shut the door and walked slowly to a chair opposite and sat down in a careful sweeping motion. She crossed her legs and regarded him a moment, clicking some keys together and tapping the air with the suspended foot.
"Your hairline has advanced," she said finally.
"Uh, yeah." He ran a hand through it. "Don't know how long I'll be able to keep it, though."
She smiled slightly. "I—" She shifted position. "The divorce proceedings have been put on hold."
"Yes, I imagine this complicates things."
"What am I supposed to do?"
Aaron stepped over to a chair and pushed himself backward into it. "I don't think there's much you can do. Under the circumstances, I think the divorce should proceed, but on different grounds. 'Incompatibility' could be a good generic term." He scratched a cheek. "I wouldn't think you'd want to stay married to a child."
"Are you, uh—"
Aaron shook his head. "The scientists and doctors keep hedging, but I'm pretty sure I know who I am in this child's body. A prepubescent child's body, as they say on TV. I can't respond to certain stimuli. I've, um, tried."
She straightened. "I guess that leaves the division of property, then. What will you do after?"
"Hope that dear sister Adrienne still has a spare room. And a bit of patience for notoriety. I'm famous, you know."
She grimaced. "Don't I. Ever since the news broke that you were among the Group of Seventeen, my phone has rung off the wall. I had to hire private security to keep the property clear."
He got up and went to the window. Outside, Earl was walking with a man with red hair, although a much more subdued hue. "One thing you need to remember as you proceed, Janessa. While I have the body of a child and will be unable to satisfy some basic lusts, I still have pretty much the mind of my adult self and remember many things. Don't think you can pull anything over on me. I'll be watching every sticky move you make."
He heard a long exhale of breath. "Out of the mouths of babes. We'll see—"
He turned and faced her. Because she was sitting down, it was easier to look directly at her. "Christ almighty, I always knew you were a cool babe, but will you look at me? Something has happened to me, something fairly traumatic. No 'How are you? Are you in pain? Can I get you anything?' Has emotion and caring hardened in you that much?"
She didn't answer, but the keys did stop clicking.
* * *
"I'm not sure yet whether I should be afraid of you."
Earl smiled. "Your father always said I got all the genes to match the hair. I guess that should tell you something."
The man stretched out on a bench. Walter Othberg turned out to be as restless as Earl, so by mutual agreement they had gone back into the courtyard.
"Dad seemed to have taken the advice seriously. When you came over, he'd hide his prize ceramics."
Earl snorted. "I know. I'd planned to break one just out of spite, but your father up and moved all of you to Hawaii."
"Mother wasn't in favor of the move, but it turned out OK in the end."
"Still live there?"
"Yes. On Maui."
"Near a beach?"
"We're surrounded by them."
"Hmmm. Still want to take me in?"
"We made up our minds to do so if the decision goes that way. Just give us a little slack. My youngest child is eight, you know. He's going to have a hard time accepting that you're his Granduncle Earl."
"I still have trouble accepting I'm Granduncle Earl."
Walter Othberg studied his uncle a moment. "Why did you go, Uncle Earl? Cousin Dora said your health was failing. What made you just leave the nursing home and fly down here on your own?"
Earl met the gaze of the tall man. "Something my father used to tell me. Never give up assimilating what's around you, he'd say. Never stop looking, observing, always be curious about the world and what's going on. Once I got into the habit, it was hard to break. One day I said the hell with it—I was going to see the ship from space before I die." He shrugged. "The rest is history."
He stood up, faced Walter, clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his feet. "An interesting turn of events, don't you think?"
* * *
In the hallway, Aaron leaned against the wall just outside of the door to the room. Janessa remained inside, intractable both in spirit and chair. Love and respect had been draining out of the marriage for years, slowly, like sap oozing through a gash. He still couldn't believe what had happened to him; he still waited for the alarm clock to ring and end the nightmare. Divorce—yes, a certainty now, he didn't expect her to keep this marriage. But, Christ . . ..
He let himself slide down the wall until his butt hit the floor. What makes a woman change like that? I was in love with her once. Or perhaps blinded by it—or the milk-white breasts and shapely thighs. So I couldn't see the real aspects of her character. Oh, hell.
A noise echoing down the hall caused him to look up. A man in his early thirties walked quickly toward him; the first thing Aaron noticed was how bald the man was. As he approached, though, Aaron saw the man's eyes staring straight ahead. One hand dragged a crying little girl of about five, the other arm supported a boy of about two, not crying, but little face creased with confusion. The man half-ran by Aaron, even though at any second the girl could lose her footing. Figures in white intercepted the trio, and two other people Aaron recognized as psychiatrists stepped forward quickly. After several gestures and gentle prodding, the man allowed himself to be led away. Two of the white-clads hurried down the hallway and entered the room where the man had come out.
Someone's reunion didn't go well.
He ignored more scurrying in the hallway as he studied the pattern in the tile floor. After a moment of this, he heard the sound of cloth sliding against cloth. He looked up to see a woman squatting next to him—not an -iatrist, this one, but an -ologist.
"Are you having problems, Mr. Fairfax?"
"'Fraid so."
"Would you like for me to talk to her?"
"I don't know if there's anything you can do, but yes, I would like you to do that."
"Certainly. I'll be back." She stood.
"I'll be here," he said as the door closed behind her.
He decided to move, though, got up and went back out to the courtyard. Earl was gone, but Aaron saw Tom leaning with one arm against a rock sculpture, head down.
Aaron stepped up to him. "All right?"
Tom looked up with moist eyes. He nodded, then took several deep breaths.
"I'm emotionally wracked, that's all. My spouse refuses to listen to me. I don't want him burdened with this. It's bad enough being gay, but now it'll be worse with what looks like a boy in the house."
"Didn't you say you were from California?" Aaron perched on the edge of a low wall. "I thought that state passed a cohabitation law."
"Oh, yes." Tom rubbed his jaw, then looked at his hand. "Huh. I keep forgetting I don't have a beard anymore. Anyway, yes, you're right, and Mark and I had ourselves declared married cohabitants. But the law does not change eons of prejudice. And you know us fags. Always on the lookout for sweet young boys to seduce into our perverted lifestyle." He extended his arms. "And I look like a boy. There's trouble ahead. So what does Mark say? 'We'll bar the door together.'" He shook his head again. "And you?"
Aaron grimaced. "Dr. Wellborn is at this moment speaking to Janessa. She'll need a sledgehammer to break through that woman's indifference."
"Indifference? Even after all this?"
"Indifference before, indifference after. All this does is give her a chance to speed up the divorce." Aaron shrugged.
"Hard to believe," Tom said almost to himself. He dug his hands into the jeans pockets and bounced on his toes. He closed his eyes. Aaron thought he saw tears. He walked over to Tom.
"What is it?"
"I'm scared, Aaron. I had a pretty good life. I was in love, and I was loved in return. We're still in love, we're pretty sure, but we cannot do a thing about it. We're too frightened to even touch each other."
He turned, took two steps, turned back.
"But that's not the worst of it. I have my tonsils back. A scar on my leg from a hiking accident is gone. What else did they fix? What did they do to my brain?"
He stepped close to Aaron. "Don't you see? What if they 'fixed' my homosexuality, just took it right out of me the way the pediatrician yanked out my tonsils?"
He stepped back, gestured with his arms.
"What if I am incapable of returning Mark's love?"
* * *
[["The seventeen people who had been caught in the Holn ship, the so-called Group of Seventeen, are the center of hearings by a special three-judge panel made up of two federal judges and one Supreme Court justice as chairperson, appointed last week by the U.S. Attorney General. Discussions today are preliminary because, first, the scientific task force has not yet made any conclusions about who these people are, and second, no one is sure who speaks for the seventeen. Health and Human Services attorneys presented arguments that the federal government could and should represent the interests of the individuals. Justice Alger Alden said that was patently absurd because—and he pointed to the empty table across from the government attorneys—no other party was present to offer counterarguments. The judges ordered the government to expedite the sorting out of the problem. Meanwhile, they did accept briefs that review the arguments that could come up in relation to the children. Avram Rolstein, administrator for the Holn Effect Task Force, said today his panel was not yet ready to theorize about the children's status.
"Meanwhile, although most officials connected with the Holn Effect Task Force are remaining mum, CNN has learned from inside sources that attorneys who won visiting rights for families of the Group of Seventeen have already petitioned the Alden Commission to release the children into the custody of their loved ones. A spokesman for the Holn Effect Task Force says release of any of the group is premature. However, as one woman, a relative of one of the children and who asked not to be named, put it, whole lifetimes have been thrown right out of kilter and they need to start rebuilding shattered lives.
"In other words, confusion reigns as the common denominator in all aspects dealing with the Group of Seventeen.
"Rolf Treadwell, CNN, Washington."
* * *
"The religious world is in ferment over the evident disagreement over the significance of the Group of Seventeen between Reverend Lakewood van Kellin of the Church of Encompassing Faith in Magnolia Springs, Tennessee, and Reverend Jim Brigman, pastor of the Faith Christ Evangelical Ministry of Waterhaven, Oklahoma. Both ministers announced to their flocks today that they spent the last three days in isolation, praying and fasting—Reverend van Kellin in his soaring glass cathedral and Reverend Brigman at the top of his spire. However, they came to radically different conclusions.
"This is the word from Reverend van Kellin:"
"The Lord says those aliens do not know His glory and have placed among us homunculi that look like human children, sound like human children, but they are not human children. They are agents of a great evil, an evil that seeks to turn us away from the Resurrection, the Life Eternal, and accept a false god and false religion the like we have never seen before."
"Meanwhile, across Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, the Reverend Brigman had this to say:"
"These seventeen people, these children, are messengers of hope. They are messengers of life. They are messengers of faith. The Lord our God has sent them to enlighten us, to aid us on our journey. They are Angels, my friends, come to enrapture the faithful and gather us into God's bosom, to teach us how to become like them, like children, God's messengers."
"Asked about this apparent dichotomy, Reverend van Kellin blamed the secular media."
"It is just another pathetic example of the left-leaning media reporting what they want to hear, not what they actually heard."
"Reverend Brigman was a little more circumspect."
"I am sure we can reconcile these differences, if any really do exist. I have not heard Brother van Kellin's statement myself and I really doubt the veracity of what I have heard through secondhand sources so far."
"What do you think? Is the Group of Seventeen made up of devils or angels? Let us know. Got to our Web site and scroll down to Your Voice and cast your vote on whether the children are devils or angels. Results will be announced on News-Overnight, ten P.M. Eastern Daylight, nine P.M. Central.
"This is Hope GoForth, CNN Religion Today, Waterhaven, Oklahoma."]]