DAY 242
"Soldier asked me about us… about you and me," Mats confessed.
He and Ann lay in their separate sleeping bags in the dark, unable to relax. "I didn't know what to tell him. I mean... I didn't know what was the truth."
He heard Ann's steady breathing in the dark, a familiar sound now, and counted five breaths before he heard her voice with its slight French accent.
"Soldier just knows. Sometimes I wonder if he knows everything, with that Ancestor's help - and he's not allowed to tell us too much. Why did he ask you about us?"
"Maybe he just wanted to make small talk," Mats suggested.
"It's hard to imagine him making 'small talk'," Ann said with a giggle.
"Okay, so he was just leading me on. I think he was trying to tell me to let go. Let go of you. I know you miss them real bad. Our friends from space."
There was a pause. Then she asked: "Do you miss them?" She wondered what Mats had gained personally from the alien visit, what wisdom he had won… for he acted as if he had stayed exactly the same.
He quickly replied: "Of course I miss them! Well, their machines anyway. It tears me up to see Carl waste away like that, when the Sirian robots could’ve cured him easily. But look, I understand Lazar and Edmund Soto for being so concerned about the Sirian visit affecting our world. For thousands of years, we've been living like that tribe in the jungle... isolated in our own little primitive valley.
"And suddenly this advanced culture pops up, from out of nowhere, and shows us things that seem like magic to us. The effect is starting to show. Those kids, the Phibs... it's a goddamn cargo-cult, springing up right in the middle of the 'civilized' world! What are the Phibs going to do when they grow up and realize they're still thousands of years behind the Sirians? It could destroy their spirit. They’d lose hope. That's what I fear. That all the Sirians gave us is life without hope."
It was Ann's turn to laugh; she reached out to touch his sleeping bag.
"Maybe it's us old squares who are the frightened ones. Because we're too old to change, too entrenched. Rich oil sheiks, politicians, generals, tyrants, religious fanatics. All those people are afraid to lose control, status. The younger ones are inspired instead, and try to improve themselves. You know, I like the Phibs. They do love science. I wish... "
Mats waited for her to continue, thinking: You wish you had children like them?
"Do you feel lonely tonight?" he asked her, regretting the question almost instantly.
She quickly withdrew her hand from him. Ever since the Sirians left Earth, Ann had been living in absolute celibacy on Alien Beach.
"Please," she replied. "You're a good friend, but... I can't. Please don't ask me to explain."
"You're afraid the Sirian Ancestors are watching? Outside of space and time, seeing everything? You think you’d betray our alien friends? Is that what scares you?"
He sounded angrier than he really wanted to; his words tasted of shame.
"Yes!" exploded Ann. "There you have it, 'land-human.' Hasn't it entered your head yet? This is what the world has become - a place, a state of mind where lies and secrets are physically impossible. The Sirians become Ancestors, and then... he will see my entire life, each time I betray him, even before I do it."
She fell silent. Mats began to understand the full truth.
"Oanss," he said after a time. "Your friend. It's that serious, is it? You never told us, and we never asked. But... you and him?"
It took a few seconds before Ann could muster a whisper: "I think so. And I still love him."
Being a trained physician and scientist, Mats had no objective difficulty imagining intercourse between a male Sirian amphibian and a human female. The amphibians were, if only physically, compatible with humans. But to imagine it being a woman he knew, and had known intimately...
His imagination faltered. Was he supposed to feel disgust, jealousy... or awe?
"So, you hate me now?" Ann asked, her voice breaking.
"I... uh... hell, no. I'm just a dumb Swede. Since I divorced and gave up my family to live with aliens, I guess I'll just have to accept the consequences. Come to think of it, Takeru fell in love with Namonnae. And he’s married." He said it without malice, for Takeru's love of that alien female had been so openly expressed, so pure - it was no secret. Luckily, all the cameras were shut off when Takeru declared his love for her. Strange, Mats reflected, what an "exotic stranger" can do to mess up a land-human’s head.
Or it could be something had gone wrong with his own head, making him incapable of seeing the Sirian visitors as anything but specimens meant for study. It was as if his emotions had withered, dulled by work and the many deaths his profession forced him to see... until he had forgotten the passion that had pushed him into becoming a physician.
I must remind myself sometimes why I do this work, that I still hate seeing people die because I couldn’t do enough for them. It was so beautiful when that old Sirian fell down dying on the sand, and was swept up into that weird machine that turned him into... a cloud?
I wish I had one of those machines for every man and woman on Earth. But not in my time, not in a thousand years. Not for my family. Not for me, not for my friends, not for Ann.
Mats lay silent for almost a minute. Then he said: "If the Sirians we came to know are, sort of, already Ancestors, if they can see everything that has happened... then they know that you and I had a few nights together, before you and Oanss... were together. In fact, Oanss will know your entire life from the moment you were born."
He paused.
"So he’s already seen you with me, sort of."
Ann slapped his sleeping bag, hitting him on the shoulder.
"You dumb, horny Swede! I know what comes next: 'So if the Ancestors already know we did it, we might just as well do it again?' Are you that pathetic?"
"No. No. I mean... if they know everything, they know damn well we're not saints. They’ll know the human condition. We're part animals. Just like they were. So they should be able to understand and forgive. Wasn't it you who said there is no moral dimension to a visit from aliens?"
"I was wrong," she said sadly. "So completely wrong. Everything has a 'moral dimension' now."
Mats was about to voice a counter-argument, when they both heard noises from the beach outside. The sound of powerful motor vehicles approaching. Barking dogs.
Gunfire.
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