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  Her lifeship would seek a mask, such as a local storm, to conceal its landing. Then Doe and the data machine would emerge to start collecting. It should be straightforward.

  Buck rubbed noses with Doe. Then she entered the spot stasis of the lifeship.

  Chapter 12: Deal

  “Oh, my,” Linda said as the data memory concluded. “And you, Nanny, are Doe.”

  /I am Doe, Nanny agreed, realizing. /My awareness of my prior identity was suppressed by the data memory, which fudged any of my own memories that tied into it, to prevent confusion. I thought I was a mere animal, but now I know myself as a caprine.

  Linda looked around. “Let's break up the herd and discuss this like the individual human folk we are. We can return to the herd at any time, at need.”

  The others agreed. They separated, resuming their several private identities.

  York Applebaum came out of it, amazed. He had known that the child Caladia was special, and that Nanny Goat was more special, but he had had no inkling of the magnitude of their specialness. This was true alien contact from a planet a thousand light years distant! The goat's touch telepathy not only enabled the human child to survive and see, it enabled the group of them to seem to visit that foreign world. To think and react like caprines.

  But that contact was fraught with danger. Not from the friendly aliens, but from the human power structure. “Let's get informal,” he said. “I am York.” He looked at the ex newspaper reporter. “Ben, you can't report this to your anonymous employer. Not yet, anyway.”

  “I can't,” Ben agreed.

  “As it happens, I know something about bureaucracies; it's my specialty. I believe it's a reasonably safe assumption that your employer is either a little-known agency of the government, or a private enterprise wholly dependent on the largess of the government. My guess is a company specializing in alien contact, the likely home of nut cases, but suddenly now phenomenally relevant. We are going to need them, just as Callie and Nanny need the rest of us, but we can't make them part of the herd. We can trust each other, but we can't trust them. We are going to have to arrange a hard-nosed deal.”

  “Exactly,” Ben agreed. “But what, given that the truth is not an option?”

  “Part of the truth. That there is alien contact from a distant planet. That only we are in a position to interpret what we are learning. That the situation is precarious and must be handled with kid gloves, no pun intended.”

  “Why would they settle for that? They can cut off my cash instantly, and since they evidently know about Venus, they could arrest her and wipe us out.”

  York smiled. “I remember Venus from before she dropped out of school several years ago. Even as an eighth grader she was a beauty. She could sit at a school desk in a manner to inflame the imagination of a pompous old principal.”

  “So you noticed my skirt!” Venus said, pleased. “I thought I was forgotten.”

  “Suppressed, never forgotten, you naughty girl. But yes, your protection has to be part of the package. You do have a record. Without our recent session here, I would never have trusted you.” Because the joint mental connection made them all implacably loyal to Callie and Nanny; they could indeed trust each other.

  “What package?” Ben asked. “I don't see that we have much of anything to bargain with.”

  “We are going to have to offer them something they can't decline. A preemptive bid. Now it is our challenge to discover what it is.”

  “Something related to the alien technology perhaps,” Doctor Sterling said. “The medical aspects alone are astonishing. Callie has no eyes, yet she can see us. A service animal that can do that is the treasure of the century.”

  “No goats,” Callie said. “They can't risk getting dissected in a laboratory.”

  “But maybe the goats will have an idea for us,” York said. “Once they comprehend the nature of our problem. We need to consult with them, face to face.”

  “Their ship would have to land,” Sam the EMT man said. “We need to make a deal first to enable them to land safely. Catch 22.”

  “Does it have to land?” York asked Nanny.

  There was a pause as Callie and Nanny communed. “No,” Callie said. “They can drop a data unit similar to the one that was destroyed before. That can connect us. With that we could set up a—a teleconference.”

  “How do we let them know we want it?” York asked.

  “Nanny has another data circuit she can invoke, that will signal the need. Like the ringing of a telephone. It's one way, but if they receive it, they can send a unit.”

  “Then let's do it,” York said.

  “She is doing it now. She will know when it arrives.”

  “Then I think that is our business of the day,” York said. He glanced at Linda. “Do let us know when we should meet again.”

  “I shall.”

  “I can give you a lift home, Isabel,” Sam said.

  The teacher smiled. “That would be appreciated.” They left together.

  That was good, as it saved York a drive out of his way. Isabel Gentry was a good teacher and a good woman; maybe she had found a good man.

  “I'm glad we had the meeting,” Callie said when York was ready to go. He had to admire the way they had become a family. “I never knew before how important Nanny is. She's a princess!”

  “Three thousand years ago, on a planet far, far away,” Sterling said.

  “She gave that up to come to you,” Linda said.

  Callie laughed ruefully.

  York departed, pleased with the occasion.

  *

  Three days later, in the evening, they gathered again. York arrived after the others, but they had waited for him, to complete the herd. This time they had the data unit, which had been dropped into another storm for concealment. Sam and Isabel had fetched it to the house. It was a compact ball about the size of a softball but surprisingly heavy.

  “Nanny says it's in stasis,” Callie explained. “So it won't get broken coming down. Now she'll open it.”

  The command was evidently mental. The ball expanded to weather balloon size and broke open. Inside was a square cage large enough for a goat to stand in, and inside that was what looked like an over-sized pincushion with five giant round headed pins. Callie lifted that out, carried it into the house, and set it on the living room coffee table. This was the data unit. The rest, it seemed, was packaging.

  “Now gather 'round,” Callie said.

  They formed the close circle, holding hands. Nanny linked her mobile horns on one of the big pins. Then, just like that, they were in the spaceship, facing a buck goat and three does. All of them had pins in their horns.

  /Welcome back to the herd, Doe! the buck thought.

  /It is a joy to return, Nanny thought back. /These are my local herd mates.

  The goats gazed at the people, seemingly taken aback.

  /Yes, they resemble apes, Nanny thought. /But they are not, any more than we are sheep. They are the sapients here, not the goats.

  That was evidently a shock to the goats; sheep were a lesser species, an insulting likeness. It seemed that it had not occurred to them that sapience could arise in a creature other than a goat. But soon enough they adapted, and were cordial. /Welcome, humans, the buck thought, this time getting it right.

  Nanny sent a wave of introductions, clarifying the individual humans and goats. Buck was the founder of the planetary enclave movement, and the three does were, with Nanny, to be the mothers of the enclave kids. /Welcome, the three echoed.

  Now York spoke, though he knew it was actually a projection and translation of his thought. “We appreciate your welcome, Buck. We need to acquaint you with our problem. We have a complicated hierarchy of social order whose lines can at times be devious. There are those who might wish harm to alien visitors, so we must be careful about allowing the knowledge of your arrival to spread. But if we can establish the right relations with certain parties, the process will be much facilitated.”r />
  /I have encountered such cases before, Buck thought.

  “We know,” York said. “Nanny—you call her Doe—shared your data memory with us. We congratulate you for your effort, and applaud your success.”

  /Your planet seems to be ideal for our enclave. We do not seek to dominate this world, or even to be known on it. We merely wish to have a small private enclave that will quietly endure as a reservoir of our species. We are prepared to trade whatever you might wish, for that privacy and safety.

  “Including your technology, that enabled you to make a thousand light year journey in perfect condition?”

  /Including that. It is the stasis that enabled our five living forms to make the trip in a seeming instant. But we hope for some equivalent value in return.

  York got an idea. “We should start small. How about a private site in our wilderness for your enclave, protected from intrusion by our people?”

  /That would be ideal.

  “Would the secret of stasis be too much to ask for such a site?”

  /We would give that.

  “Maybe a working model that our scientist could study and our technicians duplicate?”

  /It is outside your domicile.

  “That cage that the database was in?”

  /Yes.

  York rubbed his hands together. “Then I think we have a deal to proffer. The site for the enclave in return for the stasis unit. Anything further will be a prospect for negotiation.”

  /This is satisfactory.

  “We will try to set it up. However I must warn you that while trust is absolute with this touch-telepathy, there is little trust beyond it. We must set up a quid pro quo and make sure it is honored to the letter before you can land. If it is not honored, you will not want to land; your safety requires that you remain literally out of reach of our officials.” York smiled. “Think of it as dealing with a mob of apes. Trust must be earned.”

  /This we understand.

  “Then we shall return to Earth, as it were, and initiate the process.”

  /Done.

  And they were back in the house.

  “That was worthwhile,” York said. “But now comes the hard part: persuading your employer, Ben. I think we should hide that stasis generator and not admit to any outsider that we have it. It is something that the aliens will deliver only after the site for the enclave is secure. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Ben said. “Hide it after Venus and I are gone, and don't tell us where, so that we can't reveal it, even if things go wrong and there is duress.”

  “Exactly,” York said.

  “Now we will call the employer and see what we can do.” Ben and Venus departed.

  “And hide it after we go,” Sam said. He and Isabel left.

  “And hide it after I depart,” York said.

  They nodded. Then he was on his way. He was pleased with himself, but not at all sure that it would not go seriously wrong. Murphy's Law, that anything that could go wrong would go wrong, was lurking.

  Chapter 13: Betrayal

  Venus went to Doctor Stevenson's house. Sterling, Melinda, Carrie, and Nanny were there. “Ben wants to be sure the stasis unit is hidden where nobody can find it,” she told them.

  “It is,” Sterling said.

  “First thing tomorrow morning he means to call the employer and tell him of the deal. That should be the end of it, and you can fetch the unit out.” She hesitated. “I don't want to be a wet blanket or anything, but I have a bad feeling about this. When I was in the gang, when things looked perfect, that's when you had to watch out.”

  “We are suffering similar pangs,” Linda said. “We are at a crisis point, and can't be certain of the outcome. It may be routine nervousness.”

  “Ben researched his employer, and finally made a breakthrough. He's good at that. It's not the government, exactly, but is, well, like a wholly owned subsidiary. Legally a private company, but it takes orders from the government, so the line of responsibility can't always be traced.”

  “That's the way it's done,” Sterling agreed. “So when there's a foul-up, the top man doesn't get canned. So he can claim ignorance.”

  “It's like that in the gang, too. Nobody likes to take the blame. And what's a government except a big gang?”

  Linda laughed. “Unfortunately well put!”

  “Oh, something else,” Venus said. “Callie, this may interest you. The boss of this company, his name is Prentice Covert and he's a close personal friend of the president. A confidante, actually, out of the official loop. When the president has a difficult problem to wrestle with, like maybe what to do about a general who is passing state secrets along to his mistress but can't be removed without an unholy stink, Covert is the sounding board and sensible off-the-record advice man. He has a largely honorary position as Secretary of Alien Contact, a made-up office to give him a pretext to access the president anytime without question. Well, Covert has a ten year old son named Ira who got some kind of bad disease a year ago that inflamed his brain. Now he can see only vaguely, and not hear very much either, and he's clumsy when before he was a promising sports star. He was a smart kid with real promise, but now he's confused and confined to home with twenty four hour nursing to make sure he doesn't do something stupid like pissing in the neighbor's flowers or drinking gasoline. Ben says that's maybe why his dad is interested in the Service Goat, apart from his job investigating possible alien contact: it could do his boy a lot of good, if it's for real. He probably doesn't believe it's for real. Yet. That makes me nervous.”

  “Nervous?” Linda asked.

  “He just might get greedy and want to steal Nanny, if he knew for sure that she is for real, and just how good she is.”

  “Over my dead body,” Sterling said seriously.

  “Mine too,” Venus said fervently. “Probably I'm just imagining too much.”

  “I'm not sure of that,” Linda said. “That goat is a miracle.”

  “Nanny wouldn't work for him,” Callie said. “She'd be just a dumb animal for them. They'd figure it was a mistake.”

  “But what about you, without Nanny?”

  “I might as well be dead.” The child was totally rational on that point, thanks to the stabilization the goat provided.

  “Exactly,” Venus agreed. “So we don't want anything like that to happen. If there's any hint of trouble, you and Nanny get the hell out of there and ask questions later.”

  “That's savagely good advice,” Linda said.

  “Where does Ira live?” Callie asked.

  Venus fished in her purse. “I've got the address on a paper. But Callie, don't go there!”

  “I'm just curious,” Callie said. “Maybe after the deal is made, then I can visit him. I know what it's like to get cut down.”

  “You do indeed,” Venus agreed, giving her the paper. Then she left, hoping she hadn't said too much. She didn't want to get them all upset over nothing.

  Back home she made ardent love to Ben. “I wish this could erase my brooding,” she said. “In fact I wish you didn't have to make that report in the morning.”

  “I've taken their money; I have to follow through. My research indicates that Prentice Covert is a good man, true to his word. But he's functioning as an informal part of a government that frankly can't be entirely trusted. That's why we do have safeguards.”

  “Like hiding the stasis,” she agreed. “Like agreeing not to tell anybody anything. But what if it gets rough?”

  “That's why we're making love now instead of tomorrow.”

  That was not entirely reassuring.

  In the morning Ben made the call, putting it on speakerphone so Venus could hear the response. “The goat is alien. They are from a star a thousand light years away. They want to set up a small enclave, so as to have a reservoir of their species in case their home star flares and takes out their planet. They are peaceful and just want to get along. In exchange for a private site for their settlement they offer some of their technology: a stas
is generator that can freeze any living thing indefinitely, and release it alive and unchanged in an instant or a thousand years. That's how they came here: in stasis on their ship. This would be invaluable on Earth, and it's only the beginning. Give them a suitable site and a guarantee of peace and privacy and they will give you the stasis, and that's only the beginning. That's the deal.”

  “That goat,” the voice said gruffly. “How does it relate to the girl?”

  Venus held her breath, listening. They couldn't take Nanny!

  “There is a kind of contact telepathy, so that when the girl touches the goat, she can see through its eyes. That is how she can do so well in school despite having no eyes of her own. It is a quality of their species, this ability to merge and share. When the enclave is established and they have more goats, some of them may be able to help other children or seriously handicapped folk to see, hear, and think better. That is part of what Earth stands to gain from this contact, and why we should make the deal. It could be the best connection of the century.”

  “There are more goats?”

  “There are five in all, but the other four are in space and won't come down until the deal is made. A sensible precaution, considering that to them we are largely unknown apes.”

  “And they have other technology, such as a space drive that can carry them a thousand light years without misfiring? Reliable robotic assistance? Telescopes that put ours in the shade?”

  “Yes. They will gladly share it all with us, in due course. If.”

  “We will consider it. Let me acquaint my contacts with your report. Good work!” He clicked off.

  Venus breathed. “Is it all right?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Ben said grimly. “It makes sense to make the deal, as we have a lot to gain. But you can bet the ultimate decision will be made by politicians, and they can be a slimy lot. We'll just have to wait and see.”

  “I will tell the others.”

  “Find other pretexts to see them, so your movements don't stir suspicion. We may be being watched already. Meanwhile I am locked to this phone, waiting for the callback.”