Eschaton 2 - THE SIEGE OF ETERNITY

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Hilda did her best to argue, so did the deputy director, but the director herself was adamant. "Forget the legal crap," she ordered. "It doesn't matter if they aren't human beings. It doesn't matter if you think you can get a tame judge to void the subpoenas. The General Assembly wants those freaks there to testify, so they will. Or the one that talks will, anyway. We don't want to piss the UN off any more than they already are."

"But-" Hilda began, and didn't finish. The director firmly overruled her.

"That's what the President says, and that's what we're going to do."

Outside, Hilda complained to Marcus Pell, "This screws everything up. We've been keeping the ETs closed up and ignorant. Dopey doesn't even know anything about the Scarecrow message yet. So how are we going to keep it that way if he's up in New York and the damn General Assembly people start asking him questions?"

"You can't," the deputy director said flatly, and held up a hand to preempt argument. "Go get the damn things and take them up there. I'll order a plane for you. Get."

She got, seething. They had gone to a lot of trouble to isolate Dopey and the Docs. There had been plenty of argument about that, too. That doctor from Walter Reed, Marsha Evergood, had been bitter in opposition to Hilda's decree. She wanted the medical Doc to keep up with his faith healing or laying on of hands or whatever it was that he did, and wasn't content that she was to be allowed to bring a few of the transportable cases to Camp Smolley for his ministrations. But Hilda had the authority, and what she said was what happened. The technical Doc kept on pouring out his meticulous scale drawings and Dopey continued to complain, and everything was going fine. Until now.

Colonel Makalanos wasn't pleased, either, but he didn't have the rank to complain. "Yes, Brigadier," he said, "I can get them ready in ten minutes. But that means-"

"Yes," she said, "that means we're going to have to tell Dopey some of the things we've kept from him. I'll do that now. You get the van ready."

Although the Bureau had provided Hilda Morrisey with a plane to get her parade of freaks up to the UN hearings, it wasn't one of the Bureau's deluxe jets. It was a damn courier aircraft. It had few amenities, not even coffee, and it wasn't big enough for the sixteen of them.

The problem wasn't the human passengers-Hilda herself, Pat One, and her semi attached Dannerman, along with Colonel Makalanos and Hilda's new aide, Merla Tepp. It was the aliens- Dopey and the two Docs-and the eight, count 'em, eight guards the Bureau had deemed necessary to keep them in order. And the aircraft really stank, because just after takeoff one of the Docs had had to move his bowels. The creature wouldn't fit in the tiny airplane toilets so he had blandly relieved himself on the box of shredded paper included for his use.

Hilda averted her gaze. She wondered absently where the shredded paper had come from. Some Bureau big shot, somewhere, who was addicted to making hard copies of things he shouldn't? And was it possible that those unnecessary documents, or something like them, had fallen into the wrong hands, so that half the crazies in the world seemed to be able to find out everything that was going on in the Bureau? The Ukrainians had known about Dannerman's mission. Most of the wilder religious groups seemed to have detailed information about the whereabouts of the aliens-there had been a knot of men and women and even little children, all carrying the usual placards and shouting the usual demands, where they boarded the courier plane. Which no one should have known; and the pilot had warned her that there were more of the same waiting for them in New York. Bureau security had definitely gone to hell.

But, Hilda decided, the notion that someone was smuggling hard copies of Bureau plans out of the headquarters wouldn't really fly. The logistics were too tough. There had to be another explanation.

She turned around to peer at Dopey. The little turkey had taken the news that he was summoned to appear before the United Nations with equanimity-"It is about time, Brigadier Morrisey, that I had the opportunity to speak to the people of your world entirely, not just one department of one of your 'nations.' " And then when she told him the other bit of news he took it without surprise. "That is good to hear, yes, but who knows when the Beloved Leaders can get here in person? And meanwhile there is the problem of our food-"

What had crossed her mind at the time was that maybe the security leak had a different explanation. Maybe this damn freak had been in communication with the Scarecrows all along. But that didn't make sense. She couldn't believe that Dopey had somehow listened in on every conversation in the Bureau, and passed them on to the Scarecrows, who in turn had relayed them to all Earth's terrorist nut groups. And anyway, he certainly had not known where they would meet this plane.

No. The leak couldn't come from Dopey. It was almost as if-

"Oh, shit," Hilda said out loud, causing Dannerman to look up from Pat One's head as it was nestling cozily on his shoulder.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No. Yes. Stay out of it," she ordered, and crooked a finger to Colonel Makalanos. When he had left his charges to come up beside her she pulled his head down and whispered: "I just had a bad thought. It may be possible that some Bureau personnel have bugs in their heads. Go up and use the pilot's radio, secure channel: I want every son of a bitch in Arlington X-rayed, and I want it right away."

He didn't answer, only nodded and headed for the pilot's cubicle.

But, she thought dismally, even if that were the explanation, her idea might not solve the problem. It wasn't just the headquarters staff that needed to be checked for some damn Scarecrow thing. It was everybody. It could be someone on this plane. It could be-that was the worst thought-it could be Hilda herself who had somehow been bugged. And, as with the Dannerman and the Pats, she would never know it had happened.

When the VTOL landed it was at a helipad along the East River. Then they were all hustled into two armored vans-happily enough in two shifts, with the two Docs and their guards filling one of the vans by themselves so that Hilda was spared their aroma for a while. They headed north to the UN Building at high speed, with four motorbike outriders to clear the way and a half-track chewing up First Avenues already potholed pavement behind them.

Along the way they passed a dozen knots of protesters of one kind or another, most of them apparently religious. "Damn them," Makalano remarked to Hilda. "What do you suppose they want?"

Hilda nodded to her aide, busily making notes about the protesters as they drove. "You're our expert, Tepp."

Merla Tepp looked up. "I've identified three groups so far. The Inerrants-that was my own old bunch-and the Radical Southern Methodists are two of them, plus the Christian League Against Blasphemy. They think the aliens are the Antichrist, or at least agents of the Devil, and they want them to be fired back into space right away. But there's another bunch, too. All I know about them is what I see on their posters, but they look like charismatics to me."

"They want to get rid of the aliens, too?"

"Oh, no. Quite the contrary, if I understand their posters. They think they're angels direct from God. All they want is to be allowed to worship them."

Makalanos laughed out loud. "I know how we can straighten them out on that. Just let them get close enough to get a good smell."