"Just offered, Angel?"

"Well, no. I think he's given him money, because Carlos got enough from somewhere to rent a new apartment."

"He's definitely moving out?"

"Yes. I've taken the smaller place upstairs, and there's no room for him. He started out being angry, but lately he's been suspiciously helpful. I wouldn't put it past him to have bugged my new place for this man, whoever he is. Plus, Carlos insists he's going to get caller ID, so he'll know where you're calling from."

"Even though he knows I don't want him to know?"

"You know Carlos, Mom. When did what anybody else wants ever stop him? Himself and that girlfriend of his are the only people in his life who mean anything to him, forget the rest of us."

"Have you seen this man that's been hanging around?"

"He's a little guy, with a scruffy mustache. Carlos pointed him out to me. And the crazy thing is, another man has been offering Dad money, too. To help find you."

"Ah," murmured Benita. "Well, well. We do seem to be popular, don't we."

"What's it about, Mom? Come on. Don't leave me hanging like this. This is scary!"

"My job is with books, as I told you, but it might be described in part as working for the government," said Benita, voice firm, but hands clenched to keep from trembling. "I have to have a security check. I'm sure all this is just the normal hassle of checking my background."

"Well, I hope that's it. I'm taking this phone upstairs with me, no change in number, so you let me know how you are, okay?"

"I will, Angel. Always."

She hung up the phone and said loudly to the ceiling. "Chiddy, I need to talk to you."

There was no immediate response. "As soon as possible," she shouted. "Please."

She did not see Chiddy that day, nor the following one, even though that night both envoys appeared on television to announce that compliance was above ninety-five percent.

"We consider this good enough to go on with," said Vess. "The last five percent is always very difficult to reach, and it is unlikely to change the response to any question significantly. Now we will start working on some of your problems, and we'll catch up to the other five percent as we go along.

"Let's fill you in on previous requests first. We were asked to help a boy with paralysis in Arkansas.

We have helped him and a number of other people with similar conditions. We aren't announcing his name, as we don't want him or his family bothered just yet. When he is recovered, as he will shortly be, he will hold a press conference.

"Yes, we have learned who the murderer was of the young woman in Seattle, and the identities of the killers of the three African-Americans in Texas. Those miscreants will soon be brought to justice, in accordance with your own traditions. The press will be notified when it happens.

"As previously announced, we are already studying how to remedy the problems with your schools.

The causes of their failures are many, ramified, and deeply entrenched in local politics. The most amazing thing about the situation is that fifty years ago, a century ago, your schools were far better than they are now! They taught fewer subjects and taught them better, with far more success and far less jargon. Everyone agreed then that children were children, that is, impulsive, naive, and ignorant creatures in need of training. No one suggested then that schools or teachers had to put up with hostility or violence or that students had "rights" to such behavior or that freedom of speech included rudeness in the classroom. Persons could be expelled from school and sometimes were. Children were expected to be good citizens and mannerly, and the schools taught citizenship and manners. A necessary adjunct to the school was the truant officer, who sought out and detained any child under eighteen who was not in school, and children did not get out of school until they could read and write and do arithmetic. As is true on so many worlds, the theoreticians and politicians have ruined a good thing. It is likely our interventions will simply roll back time.

"Though we choose to do nothing about drug addiction, we do choose to do something about the violence, theft, and destruction of neighborhoods that accompanies the drug problem, and you may already have heard about our efforts in one such particular area in California. Your news media have been kind enough to carry the details of that action, and the supplies requested by law enforcement agencies in other states are already being shipped."

When the program was over, Benita took Sasquatch up to her favorite thinking place, the roof. The weather had stayed so warm that the plants under the arbor had grown a third of the way up the trellis, and there were many little green worms turning up the soil, probably making fertilizer like crazy. Benita could not recall ever seeing green worms before, but then, the world had a lot of creatures she'd never seen before, all gyring and gimballing on the wabe, a whole foment of them.

Which is what the ET's were doing, and what the world was undergoing. "Chiddy," she said to the sky, pleadingly. "Please."

The plea went unheeded, as had those before.

There was much news in the Sunday papers. The quadriplegic boy in Arkansas appeared on television, walking on crutches, but definitely walking. He thanked the envoys for his miraculous recovery. The murderer of the woman in Seattle turned himself in to police, refused counsel, and pled guilty, saying a voice in his mind had told him to do so. While he was at it, he said, he'd like to also confess to thirteen other murders he had committed in Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona.

The militia in Texas that had cooperated in the slaying of the three African-Americans turned itself in also, all eleven members. Eight confessed to conspiracy. Five confessed to aiding and abetting. All eleven confessed to illegal firearms possession, and four of them said they'd done the actual killing.

Meantime, there were follow-up stories on the drug pushers who had ruled the territory outside the Morningside Project, all of them caught in the act of dealing drugs, acts documented right down to the quantities and amounts of money and persons present. All had been impeccably Mirandized on tape and were currently incarcerated awaiting trial. Law enforcement in sixteen other states had requested causeometers, and some had already received them.

Newspaper and TV polls taken during the week gave the ET's a seventy percent approval rating by all races, ages, sexes, and all professions except attorneys and conservative religious organizations, both of whom felt the ET's were invading their territory.

On Sunday, Benita got a phone call from the First Lady. "The president wants me to touch base with you. Do you mind?"

"Why?"

"He wants me to know how you're holding up, and whether you need any help. There's something happening on the Hill. Not just the usual extravagant egos. The president doesn't know where you are and he doesn't want to know, because there's a push for congressional hearings about the ET's. They're charging that the president knows more than he's telling, and they're looking for any excuse to accuse him of something. If I stay in touch, he can honestly say he hasn't spoken with you. Do you speak French, by any chance?"

"No," Benita confessed. "Spanish and English, that's all. And even my Spanish has gotten rusty since my mother died."

"Well then, I won't quote the French ambassador. He feels we shouldn't listen to the envoys, they can be up to no good, because if they'd had any culture at all, they'd know that French was the language of diplomacy, and they'd have started their mission in France." She chuckled, rather ruefully. "Anyhow, the president is out of town today, so I called to invite you over for supper tonight."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Benita said.

Murmuring at the other end. "Chad will pick you up around six, will that be okay? Just you two and the Secretary of State and me.

"Thank you," she agreed, wonderingly, shaking her head a few times, trying to clear it. She had really had a casual conversation with the president's wife. She had not imagined it. My, my, how her life had changed! She put the receiver down and returned to her perusal of the daily papers.

ET'S PROVIDE CAUSEOMETERS NATIONWIDE.

HUNDREDS OF ARRESTS MADE SINCE DETECTORS AVAILABLE.

ET INQUIRY TOO PERSONAL SAYS CHRISTIAN COALITION.

CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE ASKED ABOUT FEELINGS.

QUIET REIGNS IN ISRAEL FOR SECOND CONSECUTIVE WEEK.

AFGHANI WOMEN, CHILDREN ENTERING PAKISTAN.

FAMILIES FLEEING PLAGUE, SAY BORDER GUARDS.

GEOLOGISTS ATTEMPT SONIC PROBE OF JERUSALEM HOLE.

NOTHING THERE, SAY TECHNICIANS.

MORSE DEMANDS TESTIMONY BY INTERMEDIARY.

PRESIDENT CLAIMS NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHEREABOUTS.

PSYCHOLOGISTS SAY ET'S HAVE SENSE OF HUMOR.

PUBLIC UNSURPRISED.

BAPTISTS CLAIM ET'S POSSIBLE DEMONIC INVASION.

FALWELL SAYS ET'S MORE LIKELY GAY.

AFRICANS ON MOVE.

MIGRATIONS STUMP EXPERTS.

That evening Benita waited inside her back door for the car to arrive, having decided to be cautious about standing about alone in deserted places. Once the bookstore was closed, the parking lot looked empty, but one couldn't tell, really. Some lurker could pop up from behind a Dumpster or come zipping around a corner on skates. She was wasn't afraid, not really, but she was homesick. She wanted the shady portal of her parents' house, and the smell of the sun on the pinons and watching for the first golden leaves in the cottonwoods. She imagined being there, then imagined Bert being there with her and decided it was better where she was. After all, even here the evening felt like late September, with air that was crisper and cooler than it had been. Perhaps winter air would be drier.

She was so lost in nostalgia that she missed the arrival of the car until she heard the horn and looked up to see Chad Riley standing beside it, waving. He insisted she sit in the backseat, and they chatted about the book business on the way, not even mentioning the ET's. The car had darkly tinted windows, but she obediently lay down on the seat and covered herself with a blanket before they approached the gate. When he showed her up the back way, to the White House family quarters, she found the First Lady and the Secretary of State already partway through a bottle of wine and a tray of hors d'oeuvres.

A little later they served themselves from the simple buffet that had been set out earlier. Only when they had filled their plates and taken their places at the small table did the First Lady ask about the ET's.

"Intermediary, what are they really like?"

She shook her head. "I don't honestly know much more than you do. They keep switching shape, which can be confusing. I'd say they're even tempered, for they don't get angry at me when I get grumpy, and I have been a time or two. I believe they do intend to help us live happier lives."

"The questionnaires don't bother you?"

"No. It makes sense to ask people what they think before you try to make them happier."

"I'm told the FBI believes each of the ideograms on people's hands is unique," said the FL with a glance at Chad.

Benita chewed a bit of roast beef, nodding slowly. "That doesn't surprise me, either." She held out her hand, palm upward. The mark gleamed like a ruby. When the other three laid their hands down, it was obvious that though the three marks had some similarities, each mark was different, like a very complicated Chinese ideogram.

"They want to identify us individually," said the SOS. "Maybe track our movements?"

Benita took another bite of cold beef and smeared it with horseradish sauce. "I don't think so. They don't care what civil people do. But since they found those murderers in a hurry, my guess is they can screen for certain traits if they need to find a murderous militia or someone with a dangerous virus, like Ebola."

Chad grinned. "What a system."

The SOS frowned. "So you don't think it's universal surveillance?"

Benita shook her head. "Why would they want to listen to millions of people talking about the weather and taxes and how their kids misbehave or how rotten their job is? They said they needed to find out what causes woe. Then they need to stop it. If someone causes no woe, I doubt that person ever gets looked at."

"You don't see it as an infringement on liberty?" the SOS challenged her again, not angrily but demandingly. She wanted an answer.

Benita felt heat behind her ears, a flush on her cheeks. Wine did that to her.

"Well, back home, Madam Secretary, my husband had a lot of liberty. He had the liberty to knock me around. He had the liberty to drive drunk, no matter what the judge said. He had the liberty to invade my peace and steal my money and kill innocent people with his car, and the law didn't stop him or punish him. The judge had liberty. He had the liberty to sentence Bert to house arrest and to sentence me to act as his unpaid jailer, even though I was an innocent bystander and Bert both outweighed me and didn't mind hurting me.

"The judge also had the liberty to put me in jail for contempt if I made a fuss about it. He told me so when I spoke up in court to tell him I couldn't keep Bert at home and off the liquor. He said Bert was a working man and needed to get to work, and he said this even though he knew I was the one who supported the family."

"That's rotten," said Chad feelingly, his face quite red. He pressed his lips together and looked elsewhere. Benita wondered fleetingly what part of what she had said had upset him so.

Seeing an attentive audience, she went on, "Now, me, I had a lot less liberty than Bert or the judge. I didn't have the liberty to live peaceably in my own house. I didn't have the liberty to keep the fruits of my labors. I didn't have the liberty to tell the judge in court what I thought of him, and the ACLU didn't rush to my defense so I could. It hasn't rushed to the defense of the innocent people Bert may end up killing because the judge wouldn't jail him and I couldn't keep him from driving.

"So if somebody said to me, can we put a mark on you and on your kids that will keep Bert from driving your car, or stealing your daughter's stereo for drinking money, why, I'd say, mark away!"

The SOS shook her head and said in a strained voice, "I can understand your point of view, Benita."

Benita gave her a hard look, noticing for the first time just how tired and worried both women looked. "You're upset about something specific. This supper isn't just a get-together. What is it?"

They sat for a few moments, not speaking, then the FL said, "The president has been getting strange reports. Chad knows about this. A group of lumbermen disappeared in Oregon, along about the time the envoys came. Three men were killed down in Florida in a totally inexplicable way. Just today, word filtered up that there was another inexplicable death, or disappearance, in New Mexico. There are other, less specific reports . . ."

Benita frowned. "When you say a group, how many?"

"We're only talking about fifteen fatalities, total, and the last one is presumed, though personal effects were left at the scene. But then, this afternoon someone brought our attention to World News items on CNN. You watch it?"

"Sometimes," said Benita.

"A strange disappearance in Madagascar, similar to the one in Oregon. Disappearances in India, similar to the one in New Mexico. A slaughter in Brazil, just like the one in Florida."

Benita swallowed deeply. "Is there any common thread, any indication . . ."

The SOS said in a dry voice, "A common thread, yes. They were all in rural or remote areas, all of them unobserved, where people were working in or near jungles or forests. The men in Florida were digging ditches."

"And all of it has happened since the envoys arrived," said the FL flatly. "And the Congress has access to the same information we're getting."

"It couldn't be Chiddy and Vess," said Benita. "It's not what they do."

"You can understand that we do need to know," pressed the FL. "And since you are the intermediary, you're the only one we can ask to find out."

Benita stared at her plate, thinking furiously. "These men who are out to get the president. Do you know who they are?"

The PL's lips twisted. "Your senator, Byron Morse, for one."

"He's from my state, but he's not my senator," she replied. "Who else?"

Chad said, "McVane, as you might have suspected. They have a few smart goons working for them, men named Dinklemier, Arthur, and Briess. There's a whole ring of them over at the Pentagon. There are others buried not very deeply in the Fascist Right, you know, Buchanan's bunch. There are others, quite a few, CIA or ex-CIA, most of them, and there are several other legislators. McVane and Morse are the ringleaders. Or I should say cabal leaders. It's definitely a cabal."

Benita said, "Then what's to have stopped these people from committing atrocities in India and Oregon and the other places, just to hurt the president's credibility? If they're CIA, they have the resources to do things like that, don't they?"

The FL said soothingly, "It's entirely possible, Benita. But we need to know."

"Next time I see them," she said. "I haven't seen them for several days."

"I hate putting you under pressure this way," said the FL. "Is there anything we can do for you? You don't sound terribly happy."

Benita laughed. "My son is being harassed by a small man with a ratty mustache who is offering him money to find out where I am . . ."

"We know who that is," muttered Chad.

". . . my husband is evidently also being solicited for his help, though not by the same man. I haven't spoken to Chiddy or Vess for several days, and now you're telling me about some more or less indiscriminate slaughter. I hear nothing in all that to make me even slightly happy."

"Ratty mustache?" said the FL, looking at Chad.