Cold Fire

With a sarcastic note in his voice, Jim had said that he had too little experience with alien contact to have developed any expectations that could be disappointed. But that was not true. Having grown up in the sixties and seventies, he had been as media-saturated as she had been.

They'd been exposed to the same TV shows and movies, magazines and books; science fiction had been a major influence in popular culture all their lives. He had acquired plenty of detailed expectations about what alien contact would be like-and the entity in the wall was playing to all of them. Holly's only conscious expectation had been that a real close encounter of the third kind would be like nothing the novelists and screenwriters imagined in all their wildest flights of fantasy, because when referring to life from another world, alien meant alien, different, beyond easy comparison or comprehension.

"Okay," she said, "maybe familiarity is the point. I mean, maybe it's using our modern myths as a convenient way to present itself to us, a way to make itself comprehensible to us. Because it's probably so radically different from us that we could never understand its true nature or appearance.”

"Exactly," Jim said. He wrote another question: What is the light we see in the walls? THE LIGHT IS ME.

Holly didn't wait for Jim to write the next question. She addressed the entity directly: "How can you move through a wall?" Because the alien seemed such a stickler about form, she was somewhat surprised when it did not insist on hewing to the written question-reply format. It answered her at once: I CAN BECOME PART OF ANYTHING, MOVE WITHIN IT, TAKE SHAPE FROM IT WHENEVER I CHOOSE.

"Sounds a little like bragging," she said.

"I can't believe you can be sarcastic at a time like this," Jim said impatiently.

"I'm not being sarcastic," she explained. "I'm just trying to understand.”

He looked doubtful.

To the alien presence, she said, "You understand the problems I'm having with this, don't you?" On the tablet: YES.

She ripped away that page, revealing a fresh one. Increasingly restless and nervous, but not entirely sure why, Holly got to her feet and turned in a circle, looking at the play of light in the walls as she formulated her next question. "Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?" No answer appeared on the tablet.

She repeated the question.

The tablet remained blank.

Holly said, "Trade secret, I guess.”

She felt a bead of cold sweat trickle out of her right armpit and down her side, under her blouse. A childlike wonder still worked in her, but fear was on the rise again. Something was wrong. Something more than the disjointed nature of the story the entity was giving them.

She couldn't quite put her finger on what spooked her.

On his own tablet, Jim quickly wrote another question, and Holly leaned down to read it: Did you appear to me in this room when I was ten years old? YES. OFTEN.

Did you make me forget it? YES.

"Don't bother writing your questions," Holly said. "Just ask them like I do.”

Jim was clearly startled by her suggestion, and she was surprised that he had persisted with his pen and tablet even after seeing that the questions she asked aloud were answered. He seemed reluctant to put aside the felttip and the paper, but at last he did. "Why did you make me forget?" Even standing, Holly could easily read the bold words that appeared on the yellow tablet: YOU WERE NOT READY TO REMEMBER.

"Unnecessarily cryptic," she muttered. "You're right. It must be male.”

Jim tore off the used page, put it with the others, and paused, chewing his lip, evidently not sure what to ask next. Finally he said, "Are you male or female?" I AM MALE.

"More likely," Holly said, "it's neither. It's alien, after all, and it's as likely to reproduce by parthenogenesis.”

I AM MALE, it repeated.

Jim remained seated, legs folded, an undiminished look of wonder on his face, more boylike now than ever.

Holly did not understand why her anxiety level was soaring while Jim continued to bounce up and down-well, virtually-with enthusiasm and delight.

He said, "What do you look like?" WHATEVER I CHOOSE TO LOOK LIKE.

"Could you appear to us as a man or woman?" Jim asked.

YES.

"As a dog?" YES.

"As a cat?" YES.

"As a beetle?" YES.

Without the security of his pen and tablet, Jim seemed to have been reduced to inane questions. Holly half expected him to ask the entity what its favorite color was, whether it preferred Coke or Pepsi, and if it liked Barry Manilow music.

But he said, "How old are you?" I AM A CHILD.

"A child?" Jim responded. "But you told us you've been on our world for ten thousand years.”

I AM STILL A CHILD.

Jim said, "Then is your species very long-lived?" WE ARE IMMORTAL.

"Wow.”

"It's lying," Holly told him.

Appalled by her effrontery, he said, "Jesus, Holly!" "Well, it is.”