Within five minutes the stink had found its way throughout the hotel.

The ransom note demanded seven billion in gold bullion. The sheer size of the demand made many certain that the kidnappers had the help and sanctuary of a hostile power--or perhaps a jealous one?

One paper accused the French. Three others blamed the Chinese.

Some folks knew it had to be the KGB, but the KGB itself found that as amusing as anyone could.

The FBI certainly could have vouched for them.

The FBI plunged directly into the investigation, and took a.s.sistance everywhere it came to them--and the KGB, uneasy as it was about the kidnapping, offered more a.s.sistance than even the historic record would suggest. The American intelligence agencies; the Korean and j.a.panese services; military and civilian operatives from all around the globe offered what a.s.sistance-they could render.

In the end, in fact, it was the KGB that led the Americans to the kidnappers' door.

But it took them a long, long time to do it--days and days.

Weeks.

Seventeen days, to be precise.

Seventeen days, ten hours, thirty-nine minutes. And seven seconds.

Roni Tahr himself is the only one of the aliens ever recovered. The others remain missing to this day-their fates and circ.u.mstances are mysteries to all of us- Likely, in the end, they'll be enigmas when they write the histories as well.

We have detailed audiovisual records of Roni Tahr's weeks in captivity.

This is an amazing fact. And a painful one: we have a record because one of one of Roni Tahr's warders wore a wire for the KGB.

Wore a data cube recorder, more specifically.

All through Roni Tahr's captivity, he rested in sight of the agents of our authority--and, sadly, beyond our grasp. The KGB mole in the xenophobe cell was a deep, long-term plant; he had d.a.m.n little desire to blow his cover, even for the sake of Roni Tahr; and in any case had less opportunity than desire.

In a very real sense, the heat surrounding the search for Roni Tahr imprisoned his captors even as they imprisoned him.

"Where am I?" Roni Tahr rasped as he woke. He blinked his unearthly eyes vertically open, shut, open;

he swallowed three times, openmouthed.

"I have your breakfast," his keeper said.

This man's name was Eli, and he spoke English with an accent that suggested the Near East, but could just as well have marked him as an Eastern European or a speaker of High German.

"Who are you?" Roni Tahr asked.

"What am I doing here?"

Eli smiled.

"I am Eli," he said, proudly.

"You are my guest."

A beat. Another.

"As your guest, then," Roni Tahr responded, "I would take my leave.

Will you bring me to my companions? My duty calls."

Eli laughed derisively.

"So/owner might be a better word," he said.

"You are not free to leave. It is possible you may never leave this room." He frowned.

"Alive."

Blink. Swallow. Blink.

"I see."

Eli nodded.

"I knew you would," he said.

In those first hours the FBI's search was fitful and uncertain. The monetary demand drew it to question representatives of hostile foreign powers--for only a nation state could spend funds into the billions without making its guilt obvious to all and sundry; and who else had the resources to attempt the impossible?

There were folks who said (quite credibly) that the aliens themselves had to have had a hand in the disappearance.

Terrestrial technologies, after all, don't admit the disappearance of five persons and an unknown (but presumably large) number of abductors--not from ultra secure quarters like those on the impregnable Emissaries' Quarters of the semi-penultimate floor of the Hotel Washington.

There simply is no earthly way anyone could kidnap five aliens from those quarters, the argument went, undetected by the thousands of prying eyes, pacing sentries, and soldiers standing watch.

But everyone who saw Roni Tahr knew that there were ways among the stars beyond our ken; unearthly and extraterrestrial ways that frightful things could happen before the watchful gaze of thousands.

Never mind the details; no one had them. But we all knew, all the same.

Someone's in league with the aliens, the whisper went, to kidnap Roni Tahr.

And the answer came: but Roni Tahr is an alien.

And the universe is vast enough for menace--and opposition, too.

No one had an answer for that last. It brought the terror to each heart that considered it; it told us everything the feared to know, and a.s.sured us of the worst angels of our destiny.

"They're balking at the ransom," Eli said an hour before noon.

"If they refuse, alien, you die."

Blink.

"Then I will die," said Roni Tahr.

Eli nodded.

"You show a brave face, alien. I admire that in men." Smile.

"But you are not a man."

Nod.

"No," said Roni Tahr.

"I am not a man. And you are not a Tahr. Is this a concern? We speak; you hear.

I understand. Who is a man? What is a Tahr?"