He put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. He didn’t go down for lunch. Breakfast would keep him running till dinner, and the fewer people he saw, the better off he figured he was. In the middle of the afternoon, somebody handed John Chancellor a note. Chancellor glanced down at it, then eyed the camera again. “We’ve just learned that President Ford will address the nation at nine tonight—six Pacific time.”

  Being a California guy, Jerry was used to important speeches at six. Nine seemed late to him. It did give him time to eat, though, and to take a shower. He turned on the TV a little before nine. In California, Anna would be driving home from work. He wondered if she’d be listening on the radio.

  At nine on the dot, there was Gerald Ford. In spite of pardoning Nixon, he looked like a decent man. Was it LBJ who’d said Ford had played too much football without a helmet? Jerry thought so.

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans. I have spent most of the day conferring with Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev over the Washington–Moscow hotline,” Ford said. “What you’ve heard and read about over the past few days is true. The United States has raised from the bottom of the Pacific a spaceship from another planet circling another sun, built by intelligent creatures who are not human beings.”

  The TV showed photos of Humpty Dumpty in the Glomar Explorer’s moon pool, photos of the spaceship’s interior, and photos of the centaurowls in their protective units. Jerry wondered if he’d taken any of them. He thought so.

  “The United States discovered this spacecraft. We brought it up. But General Secretary Brezhnev is concerned that, if we alone learn its secrets, we will gain an unfair advantage over the rest of mankind. I did my best to convince him that we would never act in that way. Unfortunately, he was not altogether reassured.

  “Because he was not, and as a token of American goodwill toward the USSR and towards all the nations of the world, I have agreed to allow a Soviet team of scientists and specialists to join the Americans currently studying what has been known as the Midlothian object. We will fully share what we have learned to this point with the USSR, and everything the American and Soviet teams discover together from now on will also be equally shared.

  “The United States takes this action in the spirit of world peace and mutual understanding between nations. If humanity succeeds in unlocking this spaceship’s secrets, worlds beyond count may be there for the taking. That is my deepest, most sincere hope. Thank you, and God bless the United States of America. Good night.”

  In a way, Jerry admired the speech. Gerald Ford had made Let us in, too, or we’ll blow up the world seem mild and friendly. That wasn’t easy. And Ford must have been sure the Russians weren’t kidding, either. He never would have yielded ground unless he was. If you didn’t already know what was going on, you’d hardly realize he was backing down.

  Jerry jerked when the phone on the nightstand rang. He hesitated before answering. Had some reporter found out who he was and where he was staying? “Hello?” he said warily.

  “A spaceship? You were working on a spaceship?” That was no reporter—that was his wife.

  “Hi, hon. Good to hear from you,” Jerry said. “Yeah, I was, but I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Well, of course not! I get that!” Anna said.

  The night before, she’d wondered if she really knew him. Now he wasn’t sure he would ever understand her.

  XVII

  He was not surprised to find Yakov Bronstein waiting for him in the lobby again when he went down to eat breakfast the next morning. The Washington Post the assistant military attaché was looking at had photos of Humpty Dumpty and a centaurowl under the headline WE ARE NOT ALONE!

  “Dobry den, Yakov Moiseyevich,” Jerry said.

  “Good morning.” Bronstein stuck to English. His was certainly better than Jerry’s Russian. “Would you join me once more? The ambassador has asked me to ask something of you.”

  “Has he?” Jerry wondered whether this was the hook, about to snag him so the Russians could reel him in. They’d done something for him: they’d kept him alive. If they thought he owed them something in return, they wouldn’t hesitate to go after it. The CIA wouldn’t have, either; Jerry was sure of that.

  “That’s right,” the major said lightly. “Let’s get some food, and then we’ll talk.”

  “How can I say no?” Jerry replied. They walked to the restaurant. A woman who wore a big Afro led them to a table. The attendant with the coffee nodded to Jerry, ever so slightly, as he filled their cups.

  Major Bronstein made small talk till they’d nearly finished eating. Then he said, “You are wondering what Anatoly Fyodorovich wishes of you.”

  “Oh, I may be, just a little bit,” Jerry said.

  The Soviet officer studied him, head cocked to one side like an inquisitive sparrow. He looked more like Danny Kaye than ever when he did that. After a moment, he chuckled. “You have an interesting sense of humor. I saw it in your writing, too. You might almost belong to my country, not your own.”

  “I don’t. I don’t want to, either.”

  “I understand that. I respect it. What I said is still true. And you speak our language.”

  “Not very well.”

  “Few Americans speak it at all. And this matters for what Ambassador Dobrynin has in his mind.”

  “What has he got in mind?” Jerry asked, as of course he was meant to do.

  “The Soviet Union will be sending a team to join in research on the Midlothian object. You will have heard last night that your president has agreed to this?”

  “Oh, sure. Most of the people in the country heard him say so, I bet. But what’s it got to do with me?”

  “Anatoly Fyodorovich has suggested that you go out to the Hughes Glomar Explorer as a member of the Soviet research team.” Major Bronstein still looked like Danny Kaye to Jerry: an animated Danny Kaye cat blowing a feather off its nose. “I think this is an excellent idea myself, a most excellent idea.”

  Jerry peered down at the table. He was sure he’d find his jaw lying there. He’d felt it drop, long and hard. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve got to be making that up.”

  “By no means,” Bronstein said. Jerry understood him, though no native speaker ever born would have come out with By no means. The Soviet major went on, “For one thing, as I told you before, I understand why the CIA chose you in the first place. You have the training and the imagination to belong with such people, whatever country they come from.”

  “I’m only a goddamn grad student,” Jerry said, as if that explained everything. To him, it did.

  Yakov Bronstein ignored him. “You also have some insight into the way the aliens think. If you did not, you would never have realized how to persuade their ship to open to you. That was not artisanship. That was genius. What is genius except doing what is unexpected but correct?”

  That was dumb fucking luck, nothing else, Jerry thought. He almost said so, but something about Bronstein’s expression made him hold back. The major still looked uncommonly like a canariophagous cat. Instead of po-mouthing himself, Jerry asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Bronstein’s smile broadened. As he had with Ben Bova, Jerry’d managed to find the right question. “Anatoly Fyodorovich also thought it might be … amusing to give the CIA a finger in the eye by having you return to the Hughes Glomar Explorer,” the assistant military attaché replied. “Poetic justice, I think you say in English?”

  “Poetic justice. Yeah, we say that.” Jerry smiled, too. It occurred to him that Dobrynin didn’t just want to give the CIA a finger in the eye. He aimed to poke the whole United States. At another time, under different circumstances, that might have bothered Jerry more than it did now. “You know what? I’d love to do that, not just to get even with people but to have the chance to find out what’s what with Humpty Dumpty. If the ambassador can get your government to say yes, and if your government can get my government to say yes, I’m in.”

  “This is wonderful! And I do not think there will be any difficulties,” Major Bronstein said. Jerry wondered how wonderful it was. Anna probably wouldn’t be happy with him. At least this time, though, he wouldn’t have to lie to her. That was … something, anyhow.

  “There are no guarantees, you know,” he said. “We may look at Humpty Dumpty from now till the cows come home and never figure out how it works. You think if you landed a 747 outside the Colosseum, the Romans could learn how it flies?”

  “No, but if they saw it in the air they would know flight was possible. That might set them thinking in new directions of their own. And if they could teach Latin to the pilot and the engineer, who knows what they might find out?” Bronstein said.

  “You oughta be the guy who writes sf, not me,” Jerry told him.

  “I do other kinds of things.” The major didn’t go into detail. Chances were he couldn’t, not without committing treason.

  “Well, anyway, thank you. I don’t think I said that yet. And please thank the ambassador for me. I know I’m incidental in all this, but I want him to know how grateful I am.”

  “I will pass it along. You may be sure of that.” Yakov Bronstein eyed Jerry one more time. “You do not give yourself enough credit. This can be a serious failing in a man.” He set money on the table and strode out. Jerry stared after him.

  * * *

  He started for home. The Corvair ran. He had to admit he’d got his money’s worth from Rodolfo Jimenez. Sooner or later, he figured he’d have to straighten out the lies he’d told on the change-of-ownership form. That would likely cost him some bucks. Since he had them for a change, he didn’t let it worry him.

  Coming west, he could call Anna every night when he chose a motel. Talking to her was a relief. So was the feeling that he wasn’t driving into uncertainty anymore. He’d done what he’d set out to do. He hadn’t expected to know what that was like till he finished his dissertation. Now he didn’t much care if he ever finished it.

  He wanted to call Tim Ishihara, too, but held off. Most of the things he wanted to tell his friend needed to wait till he saw him in person. He had to assume the CIA could still listen to Tim’s phone. They didn’t know Tim had held on to that envelope for him and lied to them about it. He didn’t want his friend to get in trouble for any of that. Sometimes the best thing you could say was nothing.

  He thought about calling his dad, too, but that could wait till he got back.

  In eastern Arkansas, not far west of Memphis, his oil light came on. He pulled into a truck-stop garage and explained the problem. They put the car on the rack. The mechanic who looked underneath said, “You got an oil seal that’s crappin’ out on you. Two fresh quarts of oil, ten bucks for the part, seventy-five bucks labor, an’ sales tax.”

  The labor charge was as close to literal highway robbery as made no difference. Jerry didn’t even flinch. “Fix it,” he said. Having money didn’t mean no problems came your way. But it sure as hell meant you could make them go away if they did.

  When he got back into the Los Angeles area, he made a couple of extra stops before he went to his apartment. The first was off Atlantic in East L.A. Sure as hell, the Rambler still sat there. Maybe it would even start when he turned the key. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where people called the cops to get an abandoned car towed.

  Then he drove down to Long Beach, to the white apartment with the blue roof that pretended to be on Naxos, not Ocean Boulevard. He used the coded knock on the door to the apartment the CIA used. Sure, they might have pulled out by now. But they were probably still moving people on and off the Glomar Explorer, so they also might not have.

  A large, muscular man opened the door and looked him over. “Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any,” he rumbled.

  “Oh, shut up,” Jerry said sweetly. “I don’t need to talk to you. I need to talk to Vic.”

  The guy’s demeanor changed. “Who are you?”

  “Jerry Stieglitz.”

  “You’re—him?” The CIA man’s balled into fists. “I oughta—”

  Jerry wagged a finger. “That’s a no-no.” He overplayed for all he was worth.

  It worked, too. The man stood aside. “Do what you’re gonna do.” He spat in front of Jerry’s feet, but that was all he did.

  Vic eyed Jerry with a curiosity not far removed from Major Bronstein’s. He asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You still have the fake license and credit card and everything I gave you when I came back to the mainland?”

  “Even if I do, what do you care? And how come I should give a shit about what you care?”

  “It may be handy not to be Jerry Stieglitz for a while, and to be able to show people I’m not him. And you should give a shit because you bastards owe me one. You murdered a friend of mine like you were squashing a tin can with a tank. Only reason you didn’t get me, too, is that I bailed before you could. I haven’t talked to the Times or anybody about that yet, but I can.”

  “Not if you have an accident first,” the CIA man with the thick arms said from behind him.

  “Forget it, Zach,” Vic said. “He’ll have some kind of dead-man setup so it all comes out if anything happens to him. He wouldn’t show up here if he didn’t.” He sounded cynically revolted.

  Jerry didn’t, not unless the Russians would take care of it for him. He said, “Damn straight,” anyway. Zach muttered something that wasn’t an endearment.

  Vic said, “Okay, kid. You got a deal. The plastic’ll even work.” He dug out the envelope with Jerry’s false documents and handed it to him. “Now get the hell outa here.”

  Outa there the hell Jerry got. As he drove away, he checked the rearview mirror to see if anyone was tailing him. He hadn’t done that in Washington, but he was trying to learn. He didn’t spot anybody before he swung on to the Long Beach Freeway again and headed north.

  He got back to the apartment a little before five. The King of Siam seemed to recognize him, which was a pleasant surprise. Then he stopped in his tracks and said, “Fuck!” He’d missed teaching his first spring quarter section. He scribbled a note on a scrap of paper—Call Krikorian—and stuck it by the phone. Tomorrow morning. His boss wouldn’t be in the office now.

  His father would. April 15 was only a couple of weeks away. This was the time of year when Dad went bonkers, only to have his business go into hibernation after the deadline passed.

  Jerry made the call. The answer was quick: “Stieglitz Accounting and Tax Preparation.”

  “Hi, Dad. It’s me.”

  “Hi, Jerry. Let me call you back in five minutes. I’m with a client.”

  “Sure. ’Bye.”

  The promised five minutes stretched to twenty. Jerry wasn’t surprised. His dad always underestimated how long things would take. In due course, the phone did ring again. “Sorry,” Hyman Stieglitz said. “Chris there was trying to do some strange things on his Schedule C.”

  “Okay.” Jerry knew Schedule C was where you noted income and expenses if you were self-employed, but no more. He hoped to be fully initiated into its mysteries one of these days, but he hadn’t been yet.

  “How much were you involved in the strange doings on that ship you went on last summer?” his dad asked. “Aliens? That would have been right up your alley.”

  “Yeah. That’s why they hired me, only I didn’t know it till I was already on board,” Jerry said.

  “You should have been flattered to land such an important slot so young.”

  “I was. I am. Looks like I may be going back there again pretty soon. Now that the Russians know about it, things are opening up some.” Jerry didn’t talk about how the Russians knew about it.

  “Who’d have thought a spaceship might come so close to starting the great big war? Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Vietnam—those you could see, and alevai see your way around them. But this? This came out of the blue!”

  “Did you ever think there’d be proof of intelligent life on other planets?” Jerry couldn’t resist the dig.

  His father just snorted. “The way things are these days, I’m not so sure there’s intelligent life on this planet.”

  “You know what, Dad? You’ve got something.”

  “What I’ve got is Joe Yanai coming in in five minutes with a boxful of receipts and statements he wants me to add up for him. I charge him twice as much as I would if he did the preliminary work himself, but it doesn’t stop him. It doesn’t pay me enough for the tsuris, either.”

  Jerry said his good-byes. He’d gone to high school with Joe Yanai’s daughter, Faye. She’d been one of the other handful of really smart people in their class. She’d dealt with that better than Jerry, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. There were a lot of things he hadn’t realized at the time. Looking back on his high school self, he’d been kind of a prick.

  The Agency still thinks I am, he thought with a certain amount of pride as he went to the kitchen. When he opened the refrigerator, he saw steaks. He grinned. Anna knew he’d be back, so she’d put out something he liked. There were mushrooms in the veggie drawer, too. He sliced them thin and put them on the steaks so they’d broil along with the meat. He was a better cook than she was, but he’d learned that trick from her.

  She came in at twenty past six. “I knew you were home, ’cause you picked up the mail, and—” She stopped, staring. “You cut off your hair! And your beard!”

  “’Fraid so. I didn’t want people to recognize me while I was going east. Do I get a kiss anyway?”

  “That might be arranged,” Anna said and then, afterward, “You’re scratchy. Your mustache would tickle, but now you’re scratchy. You’d better shave again before you even think about sticking your face between my legs.”

  “If I don’t fall asleep on you, babe, you got a deal.” Jerry turned on the broiler. “First dinner, then who knows what?”