“Excuse me, but is that part of the tour?”

  “Is what part of the tour?” The guide eyed his charge appraisingly.

  “That.” The agspec turned and pointed upward. The guide noticed that several other members of his group were already doing likewise.

  Advancing on the city from the northwest was a titanic cloud-piercing object that resembled a chromed Gothic cathedral laid on its side. As it drew near they could hear clearly the deep-throated humming it emitted. It was much bigger than any air- or spacecraft anyone had ever seen. It was much bigger than the island of Manhattan.

  The guide let out a strangled squeak and began to shake. Heads tilted back, the members of the tour group stood and followed the progress of the leviathan as it thrummed past overhead, its Promethean transit blocking out the sun. No one ran. There was nowhere to run to. If the mammoth intruder chose to do anything, anything at all, running was obviously not going to be of much help.

  “Well?” asked the agspec.

  “No,” the guide mumbled weakly. “It’s not part of the tour.”

  A blue-suited finance specialist from Komayo checked his gold chronometer. “I hope this isn’t going to hold us up.”

  “Don’t be like that, darling.” His diminutive wife rested a hand on his arm. “You’re always rushing when we’re on vacation. Just enjoy it. You have to admit you don’t see something like this every day.”

  “Isn’t it romantic?” murmured the newlywed novice from Salvia III. She surreptitiously fondled her husband. A couple from Warwick eyed them disapprovingly. Those Candombleans.

  Not everyone reacted to the passage of the Drex ship with admirable calm. There was some panic along the East Coast, which began to recede only when the colossal visitor had moved well offshore, its glistening spires and bright internal lights disappearing toward the horizon. Others enjoyed the sight, which was spectacular in the extreme. All you had to do was put aside the thought that it might drop out of the sky at any moment, squashing you like an ant, and then it was easy to admire the beauty of it.

  There was no panic at Baltimore Command, where the atmosphere could have been described as one of agitated tension. Bukowicz stalked from console to console like a bull in heat, casting occasional worried glances in the direction of the central holo. His staff wasn’t in much better shape. Many needed a break, but no one dared leave the control room. As the alien vessel shifted its position, the flight paths for various aircraft and even a few shuttles had to be realigned.

  At least there hadn’t been any collisions. Fortunately the alien chose to travel at a leisurely pace commensurate with its majesty. Nor was it difficult to avoid, even for a myopic private pilot out for a peaceful morning’s jaunt above Long Island Sound.

  Complaints from travel supervisors whose groups had to be rerouted were treated with the indifference they deserved.

  Aircraft both official and otherwise dogged the leviathan’s course. They transmitted plenty of pictures, which were as spectacularly unenlightening as they were visually astounding. The ship took no more notice of their presence as they swooped and circled around it than an elephant would of a gnat.

  One bold and enterprising media reporter even had his rented hovercraft land atop the artifact and, when it did not react to the minuscule presence, climbed out and did a live broadcast from its shiny surface.

  A collective sigh of relief issued from Bukowicz’s crew as well as their colleagues all up and down the coast when the alien vessel finally cleared the continental shelf. It eventually stopped halfway to Bermuda.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about it coming down in the Jersey residential district, or somewhere like that,” muttered one of his staff supervisors.

  “Unless it turns around and comes back,” someone else opined. This observation drew him several dirty looks.

  Mavis put a hand on her chief’s shoulder. “You look beat, Witold. Why don’t you get some rest?”

  “No. Not yet.” He was scowling at the holo. “We’re not gonna sit here on our thumbs and wait helplessly to see what it does next.” He yelled over to his head communications specialist. “Get on the line to Milan and Dakar. Let ’em know what’s happening on this side of the pond.”

  “Surely they’ve seen pictures by now,” someone ventured.

  “They’ll want official confirmation. Nevva’s right. We don’t know what this thing’s going to do next: stay where it is, turn around, head toward Europe, or go extra-atmospheric. Everyone needs to be prepared.” The comspec nodded, bent to his instrumentation.

  Bukowicz turned away. Mavis was right too: he had to relax or he was likely to keel over. Besides, any immediate danger had been resolved. The apparition was safely out over open water.

  If there really was a bunch of old people from upstate Newyork Province on board, he found himself wondering, what else could they make it do?

  “Well, we finally found the aliens.” One of the techs was swiveling idly back and forth in his chair. “They’re intelligent, powerful, ultra-tech, and they apparently don’t have the slightest interest in us.”

  “It’s only been a little while,” said the woman at the console next to his. “Give it time: more is probably going to happen.”

  “Why doesn’t that thought fill me with delight?” her colleague responded.

  “It doesn’t matter,” someone else said thoughtfully. “We can’t do anything about it anyway.”

  “That’s not necessarily the case.” Bukowicz was remembering the elderly voice he’d spoken with so recently. “Get me Barcelona.”

  “Regional traffic control?” the comspec asked expectantly.

  “No.” Bukowicz stared intently at the winking red light that now hovered offshore over the Atlantic. “Planetary Council offices. As high as you can reach.”

  “They won’t be able to do anything either,” said the individual who’d spoken earlier.

  “That’s true. But at least we can go home tonight knowing that we’ve passed the responsibility for this on to those who’ve been chosen to deal with such matters.” He eyed the specialist significantly. “Wouldn’t you like to be done with it?”

  The man hurried to make the requisite overseas connections.

  XI

  The administrator was as fond of his job as he was of his wife, his three grown children, his six grandchildren, and his home on the sloping cliff that overlooked the Mediterranean. Not that overseeing Earth was easy, even though it was far less populated than in hysterical times and regional bureaus, not to mention Parks Administration, had a good deal of operational autonomy.

  But with the help of computers and a professional civil service the old Homeworld managed to continue spinning around its sun in a state of relative contentment. As chief administrator he was heir to interesting visitors and soluble problems, and the job did not require that he lift heavy objects. So despite the occasional, tolerable stress, he enjoyed going in to work each morning. Only rarely was his direct involvement in decision-making required. Most of his time was spent beaming paternally as he greeted this or that famous off-world visitor, or opening a new section of restored parkland. His position was as much ceremonial as official.

  For that he was eminently well qualified. Tall, regal of bearing, with an aquiline face crowned by swept-back white hair, he was the perfect image of the senior human. He’d spent a lifetime working his way up through the Service and had advanced as far as it was possible for a civil servant to rise. His children were successful in their own right, and only one grandchild was a gameswanker. He was content.

  It was such a nice day that he did not even take umbrage at the underadministrator who barged unannounced into his office, thereby disturbing his contemplation of a blissfully uncrowded desk. He smiled reassuringly.

  “What is it, Jiang?”

  Jiang seemed to be having some trouble finding his voice. This was unusual, as the underadministrator rarely misplaced it.

  “Is something the matter?” The administrator’s concern was not merely politic: he was genuinely fond of the undermin.

  Jiang looked down at the printout he was holding, up at the chief administrator, and back down again, as though unable to make up his mind which to address directly.

  “We have just had a communication from North America, sir. From Baltimore. It is near …”

  “I know where Baltimore is, Jiang.” Privately the chief administrator made a mental note to recommend some additional vacation time for his friend.

  “Yes, of course you do, sir. I apologize.” He finally decided it would be better to look directly at his superior. But he gestured with the printout. “According to this official report, a giant alien spaceship with perhaps five retired citizens from upstate Newyork Province aboard is presently drifting over the North Atlantic approximately eighty kilometers south-southwest of Bermuda.”

  As the chief administrator of the Planetary Council of the Independent and Most Revered Homeworld of Earth silently digested this news, his friend and assistant extraordinaire gazed back at him with the desperate eyes of a short-legged dog locked alone for the night in a butcher shop with high counters.

  “I see.” The chief spoke softly, calmly. “This is an official report, you say?”

  Jiang nodded vigorously. “There have also been dozens of unofficial sightings. Whatever it is, it’s there.” He approached the intricately carved seventeenth-century French desk. “The media are all over it, and they’ve been vidcasting steadily ever since it crossed the Atlantic coast.”

  “I haven’t had time today to watch the popular media. I’ve been working.” This was half a lie, which was not only acceptable, but traditional politics.

  “Everything’s happened just since this morning, sir.” Jiang blinked. Being just vain enough to enjoy periodically altering his eye color, he preferred organic contacts to implants and sometimes they itched.

  “Very well. Let us grant for the moment what our official observers tell us.” He steepled his fingers in front of him. How big is this ‘giant’ alien spaceship?”

  Jiang checked the printout. “Approximately one hundred kilometers in length by ten wide and highly irregular in shape. It is said to have a highly polished metallic appearance.”

  The administrator smiled pleasantly. “You mean a hundred meters in length.”

  “No, sir. Kilometers.”

  “Um-hmm. That certainly would be a very large ship indeed.”

  “Verily, sir.” Jiang waited as long as seemed tactful while the chief contemplated his fingers. “Sir? The people in Baltimore would like to know what to do.”

  After another moment the chief said, “They’re not the only ones. Wouldn’t seem to be a great deal we can do with something that size.” He turned his chair to regain the view of the Mediterranean, indecently pleased that there wasn’t a hundred-kilometer-long alien spaceship hovering above Barcelona.

  “What has been the official response thus far?”

  “Park rangers and local police are monitoring the craft’s progress and reporting regularly on its activities. Apparently it has stopped moving for now.”

  “Has it acted at all in a hostile fashion?”

  “Not according to the reports, sir.”

  “How fortunate. There isn’t much we can do if it does undergo an abrupt change of disposition. Now tell me, Jiang: How does Baltimore know there are five retired citizens aboard this apparition, and just as important, what in the seven levels of Purgatory are they doing there?”

  “As to the first, that’s what the speaker the people in Baltimore conversed with claimed. Apparently they have neither reason nor the means to doubt him. As to the second, nobody seems to know.”

  “And where has this Brobdingnagian visitor come from?” This time of year the sea was calm all the way to North Africa, he reflected as he gazed out the window. Have to make time to take the family out on the sloop.

  “Final opinions have not yet been tendered, but it apparently was buried deep underground beneath the Adirondack mountain range in up-province Newyork. According to the speaker on board, for a million years.”

  “Now, how would they know that?”

  “They asked the ship.”

  “The ship communicates. Not aliens. Just the ship itself.

  Interesting. A robotic device, it would seem.”

  “Yes, sir.” Appearances to the contrary, the chief was not daydreaming.

  He swiveled back around to face his undermin. “We must have a meeting of the council.”

  “I’ve already taken the liberty of transmitting a formal request to all the members together with the reason, sir.”

  “Good. Meanwhile I think we should tach an official message to the federation, the Keiretsu, the Eeck, and all the rest explaining exactly what’s happening here on good ol’ Mater Earth. If this thing should turn unpleasant, we’re going to need assistance in dealing with it. A lot of assistance.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jiang’s tone was heartily approving. “Urgent message to everyone, sir.”

  “Everyone. Right down to Zulemaa.” The latter being a newly colonized world in the Cascarite Sector with a population of less than a million. “You never know where your help’s going to come from until it arrives.”

  Jiang was halfway to the door. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Yes.” The white-haired chief relaxed his steepled fingers and smiled earnestly at his undermin. “Tell all of them to hurry.”

  “Will do, sir.” Jiang vanished.

  The chief administrator sighed and pivoted again to face the ancient sea. He had a gut feeling that his heretofore-lazy day was about to fill up very quickly.

  And it had started out to be such a nice, uncomplicated morning.

  “It’s a trick of some kind.”

  The President sat at the head of the long white and green Rufigia burl table. His Vice President sat on his right, the Secretary for State on his left, other cabinet secretaries farther down. The other two-thirds of the table was occupied by the senior senators from the twenty-four First Federal Federation worlds. The rest of the magnificent meeting chamber was packed with Secret Service personnel, recorders, and other senior officials. It was downright crowded.

  Similar meetings were taking place in the capitals of other federations, leagues, and alliances, as well as on the independents. Ever since tachyspace travel had provided humankind with not only a means to reach other solar systems but a damn cheap one, every country and would-be country had exported its populace wholesale into the welcoming reaches of space, abandoning their tired and overexploited territories on Earth in favor of rapidly discovered virgin worlds.

  The United States of America had given rise to the First Federal Federation, the Japanese hegemony to the Keiretsu, the Brazilian Empire to the Candomblean League, Europe to the Eeck, and so forth. Even nations which had once been, such as Dreamtime and Amerind, had found refuge and strength as members of the good ol’ LFN, the League of Forgotten Nations. Then there were the independents like Kabala and Morgan, which acknowledged allegiance to no multi-world system.

  Contrary to the hopes of the effete dreamers, faster-than-light travel did not make a dent in the human tribalist tradition. Settlers took their phobias, beliefs, dogmas, governments, and flags with them out into deep space. Philosophers found this depressing, but not the people themselves. They considered it perfectly natural and, besides, they were generally too busy to care.

  In fact, the only world whose government could not trace itself directly to an archaic nation-predecessor was Earth itself, which had become very much an interstellar park, largely abandoned but not forgotten by its highly dispersed, space-traversing offspring.

  As President of the First Federal Federation, Johann Maine Wallace knew that the facts which appeared on his desk every morning had been filtered through the most sophisticated, extensive, and complex information gathering system known to mankind. In light of this it was only normal that he regard it with the greatest suspicion.

  “Someone’s out to get us,” Wallace declaimed with the same unrepentant positivism which had elected him to office.

  “No doubt.” Senator Goldman of Bama spoke from the far end of the long table. “Unless it’s a deception of some kind.”

  “If so it’s one hell of an effective one.” Secretary for Inter-spatial Relations Lamark let her penetrating gaze scope the room. “You all should have seen the stats by now, and the vids.”

  “It could be a cleverly fashioned hollow shell,” another senator pointed out.

  “Even a hundred-k-long hollow shell capable of powered atmospheric flight would be quite a feat of engineering,” Lamark pointed out.

  “The one thing we’re sure of is that it can’t possibly be an alien vessel. That’s absurd on the face of it.” The President waited for one of his advisors or one of the senators to contradict him. No one did. “Then who’s responsible for this threatening fraud?”

  Secretary for Commerce Kalenkin confirmed what they all suspected. “The Keiretsu is the only outfit besides the FFF with resources and money enough to put something like this together.”

  “Now the obvious question.” The President’s expression was hard. “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Senator Holbrook of Dakota took the floor. ‘To lure us into some kind of confrontation with this thing on Earth. Everyone knows any weapon bigger than a sidearm is forbidden in the Homeworld system. If we were to fall for this ‘alien ship’ ploy and stupidly try to take control of it by force, we’d end up embarrassing ourselves on every settled world. That would be a violation of the Sol Charter, and would please the Keis no end.”

  “Bottom line?” President Wallace asked.

  “It would cost us a lot in trade,” Secretary Kalenkin said.

  Wallace nodded. “On the other hand, what if this is a real ship the Keiretsu has put together? In secret, on Earth, out of sight of our own and everyone else’s industrial inspectors and in violation of the interworld agreements restricting the size of competing commercial vessels?”