Year's Best Scifi 8 Part 22

Yoshi joined us, feet only. "Why's he grinning?"

"Ask him," I said. I was rubbing one of his feet while he rubbed the other.

Bee was opening his mouth and closing it without making a sound, like a fish.

"It was big in there," he said, finally; still with the goofy grin. "Bigger on the inside than on the outside."

"What happened?" I asked. "We went in and the door closed behind us. It was dark but we could see, don't ask me why. We took our helmets off..."

"Took your helmets off!?" Yoshi was offended.

"Don't ask me why. We just did, all of us. Then we stepped forward, all together I think, and saw the light."

"Wait a minute," I said.

"It was like a glow."

"But bright," said Chang, who had joined us. "The brightest thing I have ever seen."

"The next thing I knew I was on my knees," said Bee. "I could feel this hand on the top of my head."

"A hand?" Yoshi was offended again.

"It felt like a yellow hand," Vishnu said, peeling off her long johns; it was the first time I had seen her undressed.

"It was definitely a hand," Bee said. "I could tell it was a hand though I couldn't see anything. I don't think I even looked."

"It was all light," said Chang. "And this feeling. It was a hand on the top of my head."

"It felt so good," said Vishnu, lowering herself into the water. She had the body of a girl.

"Sounds like an acid trip," I said. "Or a three-armed alien."

"What was the communication?" Yoshi asked. "What was said?"

"The feeling was the communication," Bee said. "That was all. Nothing was said. We were just there, all three of us, on our knees, looking into the light."

"With a feeling of...of..." Chang gave up.

"I don't like this," said Vishnu, looking down at herself, as if just realizing she was nude. "Shouldn't we be talking about this among ourselves first?"

"It's okay," said Bee. "We can proceed any way we decide is best, and this feels okay, doesn't it?

These are our closest comrades here, after a million years of evolution."

Huh? He looked stoned to me.

"So whatever it is, it came all this way to pat you on the head?" Yoshi grumbled.

Bee and Chang just grinned. Vishnu looked troubled. I wondered if she were wishing she had kept her long johns on.

"Maybe it's G.o.d," I said.

"It's a they," Bee said, shaking his head.

"More than one," said Vishnu. "Many."

"And they know us," Chang said.

"Yes! That's the communication," Bee said. "They know us, and we know them. That was the feeling, more than a feeling, really. That's what they wanted to tell us."

"They?" Yoshi rolled her eyes. "They called you up here for a feeling? There's no communication?"

"Feelings are real," said Bee. "Maybe that's all it will be. Who knows. The idea behind SETI is that First Contact will probably be something unexpected."

"This is unexpected," said Vishnu. "But not unfamiliar. Very familiar. We have been here before."

"Here?" I asked.

"In their company," said Chang. "Being with them felt good. Better than good. Great."

"Great," said Yoshi, looking disgusted.

"And now?" I asked. "Next?"

"I don't know," said Bee, looking out toward the black pyramid, with its yellow print halfway up the side. "There's something, something else. I guess we go back."

And so they did. The next "morning" they all went out again, Chang and Vishnu suited and Bee leading, in his peel. They emerged after only twenty minutes this time, with the same lunatic grins.

"It's not like we aren't conscious in there," said Chang, as his helmet came off. "It's more like we're conscious for the first time."

"Right," said Vishnu. I would have made another acid trip joke, but I didn't want to discourage them. This was, after all, I told myself, the long awaited First Contact, for which humanity had waited a million years or more.

Wasn't it?

"Who are they? What are they? What do they want from us?" asked Yoshi.

"They want to be with us," said Vishnu, dreamily peeling off her long johns. "Just like we want to be with them."

"It's all feelings," said Bee, slipping into the pool beside me. He looked like the Michelin tire man in his foam suit, before it started to dissolve into harmless polymer chains. "But the feelings contain information."

"They sort of precipitate into information," said Chang.

"The feelings are information," said Vishnu, nude again. "We are in contact with an ent.i.ty that we have been in contact with before. And have always wanted to be in contact with again."

"That's the feeling!" said Chang eagerly. "Desire, and the fulfillment of desire."

"Sounds sort of s.e.xy," I said.

"It's a wonderful feeling," said Bee, taking me more seriously than I took myself. "But it's changing, too. There's something else."

"Something dark," said Vishnu.

"Dark how? Dark what?" Yoshi was putting the helmets and suits away, looking annoyed.

"It's too soon to say," said Bee. "First we all need to get some sleep. That's an order."

"Wake up."

It was Yoshi.

"It's Berenson, he's gone. He's in there."

"What?" I sat up, almost spilling out of my hammock. I had been dreaming I was home on Earth with Sam, trying to explain something to him, about sticks.

"I thought I saw him, in a peel, going in, about five minutes ago."

"Are you sure?"

"I thought I might be dreaming, so I checked. The other sadies are in their hammocks, but Berenson is gone."

"So what do you think we should do?"

Twenty minutes later I was in boots and long johns, spraying on a peel. I shook open a paper helmet, checking to make sure it had two full air cans (twenty minutes). I had thought I remembered the cold and was prepared for it, but I wasn't. It was insulting, crushing, humbling.

I hurried toward the pyramid. The dust cracked under my feet with that weird squeak of molecules that have never-not by wind, not by water, not by weather-been rubbed together. The squeak came up through my bones as sound. I had forgotten it.

I saw Yoshi and the sadies, awake now, watching from the dome. I waved as I ran. I could feel the vacuum slicing my fingertips, like steel knives.

I put my hand against the side of the pyramid, covering the print, and something happened. I wasn't sure what. It opened, I went in; it was dark, I was alone.

I was inside. I didn't know, still don't know, how I got there. Before I knew what I was doing, I was taking off my helmet.

The air smelled like lemons. It was cold, but not Moon cold. The pyramid was larger inside, just as Bee had said, tapering up to a cone of darkness in the center.

And there was a light. Also in the center. It had a kind of substance light doesn't always, doesn't often, doesn't ever, have. It was beckoning; I approached. It all seemed natural, as if everything I was doing was what I had always wanted to do. It felt good; very good. It felt great. The light grew brighter and I fell to my knees, but it was more like rising, really. I couldn't stand but I didn't want to stand. I felt a hand on my head: I knew it was a hand, and I knew what hand it was! I had a million questions, I knew, but I couldn't think, even when I tried. I was so very glad to be here, back here, where Ibelonged. Where I was glad to be.

I felt a hand in mine. Bee. He was pulling me backward, away from the light, into the cold and the darkness. We were putting on our helmets, Bee and I. We were stepping together across the squeaky surface of the moon, toward the lighted dome, which looked like a zoo, full of puzzled friendly faces, pressed against the gla.s.s.

"Are you okay?" Yoshi asked.

I saw my b.r.e.a.s.t.s floating in front of me and realized I was in the hot tub. I laughed. Bee laughed with me. I knew that the grin on his face was a reflection of my own. We were in the water and someone was handing me a cup of coffee. Joe, they used to call it. A cup of joe. "I'm okay," I said. "I went in to get you, Bee."

"I know, but you shouldn't have. You should have awakened the others."

I understood. It was a break in the protocol. "We know them and they know us," I said. It was like remembering something; it was easy, and yet impossible if you couldn't do it. "They are glad to see us."

"Not exactly," said Bee. "There's a melancholy, too."

"Something very sad," said Vishnu. She was wearing her nightgown and her tiny feet were in the water next to my shoulder.

She was right. There had been a reproach, a disappointment. "I can feel it, too," said Chang.

"Feel what?" asked Yoshi, tapping me on the head with a long finger, like a teacher admonishing a bad student. "Tell me what happened. Now."

"There are just these feelings," I said. "Then afterward, they sort of turn into, not ideas exactly, sort of like memories. Is that what you want to know?"

"I want to know what's f.u.c.king happening. And I want you to tell me."

"Don't be hard on her," said Bee. "We're all just figuring it out."

"Figuring what out?!"

"What they want," said Chang. "They love us, they wanted to find us. They found us."

"And we love them!" I said. "That's why we can't see them."

"That's right!" said Bee, looking at me as if I were a genius. "We love them so much that all we can see is the light of our love."

"I hope this is all going in your f.u.c.king report," said Yoshi, sounding disgusted.

"They found us again," said Chang. "That's why we are so happy."

"But something is wrong," said Bee. "We have to go back in. Once more."

"And do I get to go?" I could still feel the hand on my head. I wanted to feel it there again, more than anything.

"We'll all go this time," Bee said.

But we didn't all go. Yoshi had no desire to go; plus, she explained, she felt that somebody had to stay behind and stay on top of systems.

"Designated driver," said Bee, laughing as we sprayed each other. He and I were the only ones in peels. Chang and Vishnu wore suits. I felt I was one of the sadies now, and they treated me as such.

Even Chang. We crossed the squeaky dust and held hands by the pyramid. Looking back I saw Yoshi in the dome, looking a little bit abandoned.

Bee hit the print and there we were, inside. I unstuck my helmet and looked for the light. I fell to my knees. "Oh boy," I said when I felt the hand on my head.

Something was wrong. Everything was okay but something was wrong. After a few moments of confusion, we were pushed out the door, holding hands, into the cold. I couldn't remember putting my helmet on, but I was breathing as we hurried toward the lights of the dome.