The Siege of Eternity

"No, Brigadier. I'm in excellent health. I think I may have eaten something-"

"I think," Hilda said sharply, "that you just can't stand touching the little freak. Is that it?"

Tepp was clearly shamefaced. "I'm uncomfortable, yes. I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't good enough," Hilda said, meditating.

"Oh, please, ma'am, no!" Tepp begged, fully aware of what might be coming next. "I do dislike them, yes, but it doesn't interfere with my duties."

"What do you call what just happened?"

"I give you my word it won't happen again. Please, Brigadier! It means so much to me to have the chance to work with you-"

"Get in and drive," Hilda said, cutting the conversation short.

In a way she wasn't displeased. It wasn't entirely a bad thing for an American to loathe and despise aliens of any kind. But to take this one on as her aide?

That was going to take further thought. On the way back to the Bureau Hilda devoted herself to catching up on the news on the car's* screen. The UN was making trouble again; a speaker at a convention of police chiefs noted an encouraging drop in the number of terrorist actions in the past few weeks; nothing important, really. But she stayed with it, and did not speak again to Cadet Tepp.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Come on," Dannerman said to Pat Adcock, half-pulling her out of the car. They stood silent in the packed snow, while the hooded figure in the parka kept them covered with an assault rifle. It was a weapon Dannerman knew well-well enough to suppress any thought of resistance. "Just stand still," Vassili was whispering nervously. "Do not startle her; she is quite young, and may do something foolish."

Her? She? But when the person with the rifle stood up and waved them forward Dannerman saw that it was a woman, all right, in fact no more than a girl, long hair spilling out from beneath the hood of her parka. And suddenly she was not alone. A larger figure, definitely a man, definitely also carrying a rifle, came out of the door to join her. He said something peremptory in Ukrainian. Beside Dannerman the man named Vassili groaned, objected, surrendered. "He says to you must immediately take off your outer garments."

"Here?" Pat cried in surprise. "We'll freeze!"

"But," said Bogdan, his English worsening with strain, "must do it, get weapons of you." And suddenly he had them covered with a gun of his own.

They didn't freeze, though Dannerman's teeth were chattering by the time he had been patted down and his carry gun and radio transmitter removed. Then they were allowed into the house that stood all by itself on the desolate hill.

It was warm there. In fact, the house was a pleasant and wholly unanticipated oasis of comfort. They came in through a kitchen, complete with every device modern domestic technology had to offer; they entered a living room with a huge picture window and a wall screen, as well as two or three expensive exercise machines scattered among the pieces of also expensive furniture. The furniture was not in the least modern. It was the sort of thing one might have found in a home of nobility in czarist times, with a huge samovar on a table and an icon of some tortured saint hanging above it. Another man and another woman were there, chattering worriedly in Ukrainian to Bogdan and Vassili. There also was Dr. Rosaleen Artzybachova, looking not a bit different than the way she had appeared when Dannerman first saw her, in the office of the T. Cuthbert Dannerman Astrophysical Observatory in New York City. She was smiling. She clapped her hands and spoke sharply in Ukrainian. Then she advanced on Pat and Dannerman, hands outstretched. "This is a pleasure I had not expected," she said, kissing Pat, hesitating only a moment, then kissing Dannerman as well. "This is better than our cell on that planet, isn't it? Wait-" as Pat opened her mouth to speak. "Before we talk, there is a custom I want to observe-when I am in my home, you see," she added, half-apologetically, "I become very Ukrainian."

She beamed at the woman who had resignedly hurried into the kitchen, and was returning with a tray. Which contained-

"Bread and salt," Rosaleen said proudly. "It is what we do to welcome friends. And who could be closer friends than we, who lived in such proximity for so long? Eat a little, please. Then we can talk."

"No," Pat said suddenly.

Rosaleen paused with the tray in her hand to look at her. "No?" she repeated.

"No, we are not the ones who were in captivity with you, Rosaleen. We're the ones who were returned to Earth. And Dan is still a spook for the Bureau."

"Yes," Rosaleen said placidly. "I am aware of that." She set the tray down before them and retired to sit down. "Excuse, please, the fact that I am quite old and still a bit tired."

"You don't understand!" Pat said. "We aren't here just because we're your friends! We're here because this man has been ordered-"

Prison Cells from Space?