Marley ran outside and threw her arms around him.

  "Hey! Mom!" He shucked her off in embarrassment, looking back at the van.

  A harassed man climbed out of the driver's seat and started to explain, but a bare spring from the car seat hooked into his jacket. The seat back fell into the parking lot. He scrambled to replace it.

  Marley stared from the van to Curtis. "You're riding in that?"

  The man pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Hello, Ms. Richardson. I'm Bob Chang, one of the youth counselors. The van's not too bad as long as you take left turns gently because of the axle. The internal alert signal never stops while you're driving, but it's just a short."

  Three other fifteen-year-olds stuck their heads out the windows and sang, "Siii--"

  "Beep!" chirped Curtis as the warning signal.

  "--elent Niii--

  "Beep!"

  "--iight."

  Bob frowned. "Keep it down, guys. People are trying to--" The scream of an ambulance cut him off. He tried to ignore the adolescent laughter. "And the brakes haven't hit metal yet. The backfire's annoying, but it doesn't --"

  "But . . . so late . . ." Guilt of the forgetful mother froze her tongue. She muttered an obscenity in her private language.

  "But, Mom, we had to stop by Quik Mart for Tina to get some diapers for her baby. Then the van wouldn't start and we had to push it until -- I gotta call Tina and tell her we made it." Curtis loped through the apartment door.

  "Ooooooo, Teeeeeeenaaaaaa," shouted his friends.

  Bob looked at his feet. "Do you want to pick up Curtis from now on?"

  "Yes. Well . . . I'll try." Marley looked away. "I don't always know when I'll get off work. I'm sorry."

  "Don't apologize. I'd feel the same way if it were my boys." He whirled around to make a quick exit, but the door handle stuck.

  Equally humiliated, Marley watched him drive away, his passengers caroling and beeping, this time to "We Three Kings." She looked up at the night sky as she went back inside. Where was a guiding star when you needed one?

  Buried under street lights, business neon, airport signals, and the glow from the SuperAstroDome. She shook her head as she shoved the front door open.

  Curtis emerged from the kitchen with his hands full. "Can we go to Bubba's All-You-Can-Eat Barn tomorrow night? You said I could pick."

  Marley ran a hand through her hair. "Oh -- we can't. They changed my schedule."

  "You promised! You said you'd come to opening night."

  "Yes, I know . . . and I will. It's just that they'll come pick us up and take us, so we can't go out to eat, unless I can get off early . . ." She shook her head, not wanting to break another promise. Curtis snorted in agreement. "And I can't stay all evening. I'll have to go with the aliens to some holiday shows. I should be back in time to pick you up." Again her voice rose uncertainly.

  "It's sure not like Christmas used to be," Curtis muttered through a chicken leg. "I'll get my own ride home."

  "Not in that . . ." Her voice trailed off helplessly. She blinked away visions of toddler Curtis cooing, clapping at the Christmas tree while she and Josh . . . She reached for something, anything, to say.

  Curtis was gazing at her pants. "Have an accident, Mom?"

  The mature discussion Marley intended to have with Curtis the next morning dissolved into a scattershot of grievances, ending with Curtis's theme song about things not being like they used to be (with door slam accompaniment). Wondering what right she had to call herself a communicator, Marley slouched through the work day, watching the team try to explain holiday customs to politely uncomprehending Eridanians. Asked about their own celebrations, the aliens recounted the days set aside to mark the devastation of the southern continent by their northern enemies and the remembrance of those who died in religious wars. It was a long list. Human faces grew pinched. Marley began to panic, more from the human reaction than the Eridanian stories. She tried to point out that Earth had plenty of bloody occasions that most people took lightly, but no one heard her. She vowed to talk to the Eridanians when she had them to herself that evening.

  As it turned out, she had them to herself and three vans worth of military personnel. Curtis, his earrings swinging, affected an indifferent slouch as he climbed into Marley's van. She tried not to be embarrassed. He looked like any other teen. Introduced to the van's occupants -- two security guards, Kevin as driver, and three Eridanians -- he rasped and yipped what he thought was the traditional greeting. He came closer than the President had.

  The Eridanians graciously replied. Curtis hunched down in standard sullen boredom, but his eyes kept darting towards the extraterrestrials. Saving up bragging details, Marley was sure.

  On the drive to the strip mall, Marley explained the Living Nativity, skimming over religious elements while Kevin chuckled under his breath. She glared at the back of his head as she said, "The church youth have volunteered to present this pageant to raise money for a church building."

  Curtis added, "Yeah, and the angels are gonna wear their nightgowns, and Tina Salera is back from having her baby, so they're going to be Mary and Jesus. She already looked pretty fine before, and now she's got boobs. And Keanu Jardine moved to the Lower Territories to get out of child support."

  Kevin laughed. "Translate that, Mom."

  As the government van slipped, sleek and silent, into a parking place, Curtis jumped out. Even unmarked, the vehicle radiated power. Next to it the tie-dyed van pulled up. It backfired with a lurch.

  "Van fart!" shouted its adolescent passengers, streaming out into anarchy.

  Besides the church, the strip held a Mexican restaurant, a thrift shop, a used media store, and a gym. The Nativity had been consigned to the far end of the lot to grant peace and parking to the other enterprises, but it was spilling over.

  Nightgown-clad angels ran shrieking, throwing handfuls of hay at their pursuers, shepherds reaching with papier-mâché crooks. Their neglected flock, goats with white bath mats tied around their middles, milled about moodily, terrorizing customers. An aerobics bunny from the gym screamed as the goats surrounded her. An adult who'd been nailing the beams of the stable together ran to help. His carpentry collapsed, to the cheers of the youthful congregation.

  A Virgin Mary, looking more like Circe, stood apart, baby in arms. She nudged the manger with her foot and looked askance at the goats nibbling the hay. Despite her shapeless robe, every move emphasized the curves Curtis had admired. Marley shut her eyes in pain.

  A family van pulled to the lot. Teen girls bounced out, carrying pizza boxes and waving pop bottles. A pro mom in uniform -- denim skirt and perky red Christmas sweater -- barreled out, bawling, "All right, settle down, round up these goats, get back on our side of the lot."

  "This is winter festival?" asked Red.

  "I'm afraid so." Marley sighed.

  Dressed in traditional magi costumes handed down through the ages -- velour bathrobes with gold piping and paper crowns from a fast-food restaurant --Curtis and his fellow wise men erupted from the church. Marley noted cynically that the most exotic boys had been selected, to give the magi a foreign appearance. They King-Tutted to their "camel," a pony with a brown bolster pillow.

  With a royal flourish, Curtis offered the pony a slice of pizza. "Whoa!" shouted his companions, laughing as the pony lipped off the toppings. "Let's try anchovy and onion on him!"

  Blue asked, "Significance?"

  "It's the pageant we spoke of."

  "Pageant?"

  "Um, play."

  "Toy?"

  "No. Um, they're acting out a religious story of a baby, a star--"

  "And many animals," said Green, examining the piebald goat sniffing his robe.

  Blue pointed. "Sitting on animals?"

  Marley sighed. The Sri Lankan magus was trying to mount the bolstered pony. Curtis and his African counterpart helped. The pony ducked his head in apology but backed up in a definite negative. "Those are the wise men."

  "We seek these." Red waddled toward them. Blue and Green followed after a few hoots that Marley didn't understand.

  "Wait. They're not really--"

  "Ms. Richardson, I still don't have permission slips from you." Bob appeared at her side.

  "What? Oh." Marley squinted after the Eridanians. Bundled in coats, scarves, and hats, they could pass for humans. But could Curtis be trusted? What were the boys telling them? She looked for the security men; they were circling the area. Kevin was entering the Mexican restaurant.

  The shepherds thundered by again.

  "Are they all like this?" Marley covered her ears.

  "I just started as a youth counselor, so I can't say. But my eldest was just getting to that stage when my ex-wife moved." Embarrassed, Bob ducked his head. "That's why I volunteered. Rev. Boehm thought it would help me stop feeling sorry for myself."

  "Did it?" asked Marley, feeling the same need.

  "Now I feel sorry for myself because I'm a youth counselor." Bob shoved some papers and a pen into her hands. She signed as best she could as the pen sputtered. "This is a permission slip for me to drive him home, if you still want me to, and one for him to take part in the activity. An information form with his medical and insurance information, a hold-harmless agreement between you and the church and any church volunteer, a personal commitment form agreeing to have him here at the designated times, an agreement to support any disciplinary action that might be necessary (not to include corporal punishment), and--"

  "Just for a Christmas pageant?" Rising on her toes, Marley tried to see the Eridanians.

  "We have a lawyer on the executive board," Bob apologized. "And a goat rancher." He grabbed a runaway goat.

  Marley almost escaped, but the professional mom accosted her.

  "Marley Richardson? I'm Samantha Jacoby, your Prayer Angel."

  "Prayer Angel?" Marley craned her head to look around Samantha. Curtis was making wide gestures for the Eridanians, and a couple of security men had discreetly closed in.

  "I drew your name, and I'll be praying for you. At the New Year's Luncheon we'll talk about our blessings." Her face lost some of its brightness. "If we're still here on New Year's. With aliens roaming the earth, I mean. Did you hear the President's speech?"

  "Roaming?" asked Marley in a feeble gasp. The aliens had hardly set foot out of the Wyndham-Mark until this week, and never without heavy security.

  "Is there anything you'd like me to pray for? Any way you'd like your life to change?" Samantha hooked her bright smile on with an effort.

  Wild desires tumbled through Marley's heart, including model sons and men with Caribbean-blue eyes, but as she made a break, she said only, "Just a miracle or two."

  "You know what Rev. Boehm says about miracles," Samantha called.

  The Eridanians waddled back. "Useful," chirped Red.

  Bob came back with the bucking goat, and his eyes widened in recognition. Panicked, Marley herded the Eridanians aside. "It's about to begin. Let's go where we can see better."

  The pageant's static nature gave Marley plenty of time to struggle with translating abstract and religious concepts into a language where she'd barely mastered concrete nouns and action verbs. Finally Kevin ambled back from El Periquito with a bag, adding fried grease to the animal stench. "Special holiday praline taco, anyone?" he asked between munches.

  "Can we just get out of here while we're all alive?" Marley snapped. "Remember what happened to Captain Cook in Hawaii?"

  "That was an accident. They weren't aiming at him."

  "Ha!"

  The rest of the evening's schedule called for a performance of "A Christmas Carol," a family version cut beyond the bone in deference to early bedtimes. Then they drove through the Candlelight Festival, since it was convenient to the new Hermann Park Theatre. During the drive, Kevin tuned in to a replay of the President's speech, a rework of one of his first campaign addresses.

  President Fordham's deep voice flowed like black molasses. "I personally am monitoring all activity and negotiations with our interstellar visitors. We will not let the quest for knowledge override our first duty. You may continue with your daily tasks, your preparations for the holidays, secure in the knowledge that your defense from any menace, from this world or the stars, is my only priority. I pledge to you that this administration will never sleep, never relax its vigilance, never flinch from a hard decision when the safety of our nation is at stake. Wherever Americans walk--"

  "--They walk in safety," chorused the men. Kevin mumbled a codetta: "Except possibly in Houston if we have to blow it up."

  Marley's stomach twisted in knots.

  At the Galleria they heard special music from local high schools and saw the Santa Claus village. Marley hustled them by a media store, where the wall screens displayed clips of the President's speech and party footage of the Eridanians. Hearing murmurs like "Blow them back where they came from," she worried about people recognizing the aliens as Bob had, but the shoppers plowed through everyone in a self-centered whirlwind. After the third body slam, Green asked, "What religion does this activity represent?" Marley thought it a fair question. Fortunately they were walking by Digital Dream, and the fleet of computers playing "Silver Bells" slightly out of phase made answering impossible.

  Back in the van, free of the cacophony and rancid odors of Christmas bliss, she said with some anxiety, "Much of what we saw tonight is pretending. Not real. You understand that?"

  "We perceive," said Blue. "People pretend happiness."

  Marley's head had been pounding cruelly since Bellaire High School's rendition of "Little Drummer Boy," which they'd misread as "Little Drum and Bugle Corps with a Few Riffs from the Jazz Band." The headache dissolved on the soporific return journey, but the scent of roses and new car leather lulled her close to sleep. Maybe she could try again tomorrow. If they had a tomorrow.

  Part 2 of 2

  Read Part 1 here

  The next few days combined the worst of holiday anticipation and stark terror. The anthropologists asked the Eridanians for more history, and all three described long-term wars and cruelties that made even the most hawkish humans blench. No one could help imagining what such beings might do when the President told them to leave.

  Private unvoiced hells drove all departments to redouble efforts on their reports for the President. Everyone needed translation constantly. The linguists never had more than ten uninterrupted minutes to work on their own report. When Dr. Scofield pulled Marley off of High Eridanian qualifiers, she was sorry to be dropped back into the turf wars and shouting matches. Kevin ran about, clamping electrodes onto the combatants' heads to get good human readouts of strong emotion.

  Even packed with multiple excursions for the Eridanians, the evenings brought Marley some relief. At least nobody shouted. They attended a Messiah singalong, hastily scheduled parades at military bases, a klezmer band playing the Nutcracker, a public Hanukkah candle lighting, and Carols on the Square.

  They even visited the holiday display at the Space Center, where some impulse made her purchase a souvenir shuttle paperweight. It would probably elicit an "Oh, Mom" and rolling eyes, but Curtis as a small boy had loved rockets and spaceships. It might be his only present, with the bonus money still a theory. The cynical view held that the government hoped to delay paying it until they bombed Houston.

  One night Curtis brought home a twisted pine spray. He said the nearby tree lot had given it to him. Looking at the brown-tipped needles drifting to the carpet, Marley believed him. She told him he was responsible for setting it up. "But not there!" she shouted when he filled the kitchen sink with water and stuffed his tree in the drain plug. When she came home the next night, she found it nailed, wildly askew, to the coffee table. Teenage accessories -- earrings and keychains -- dragged the drooping branches down further.

  By Christmas Eve, Marley felt split, fried, and barbecued. Only last night the President had assured them:

  "As I watched the World Trade Center towers collapse on themselves, I swore to end all terrorism on American soil. The attacks on our major cities over the next decade only strengthened my resolve. And I stand before you today as your President, the only President in fifty years to have served in the military, and I pledge to you that during my administration you will always walk in safety, no matter what the cost."

  The media stories had tripled in hysteria afterwards, but their reaction seemed mild compared with FCT team's thrashings with their final reports. No one said out loud how final they might be.

  After 3:00 p.m., Marley's eyes glazed over in after-school anxiety, relieved only when Curtis beeped her wrist phone in his afternoon check-in. She had hoped to leave early for some minor Christmas shopping, but Dr. Scofield planned for the linguists to outstay everyone else and work on their report then.

  Someone brought in cold pitas for supper around 8:30. Marley tried to snag some minitubs of hummus, but two FCT staffers were standing in front of the tray and arguing over a letter from a Buddhist monastery thanking the Eridanians for their visit.

  "They didn't go, did they?"

  Marley tried to reach behind the smaller man, but he backed into her.

  "How could they? They were here every day. Buncha cranks."

  "Buddhist nuns?"

  She snaked an arm between them to grab a handful of tubs. Then she searched for Kevin. She tracked him down in the hotel bar, where he was gulping Shiner Bocks faster than the bartender could clear them away.

  "I've brought some food." She tripped over the door sill and muttered a private curse as she stumbled against the bar.

  Kevin banged his mug on the counter. "What did you say?"

  "You speak Arabic?" she asked, surprised.

  "Shh! I can curse fluently in any number of languages, but that's not one I recommend admitting to. Particularly as authentic as you sound." He searched her face as though reading her DNA. "Where did you learn it?"

  "From Sitti. It's been a long time." Marley set the containers down on the brassy bar.

  "I thought your grandmother was Chinese."