"What is it?"

"Chiddy's translator. He left it here, I was supposed to turn it on so it could assimilate spoken Spanish. I forgot!"

"Bring it with you," he said impatiently. "We'll speak Spanish to it, wherever we go."

"You speak Spanish?"

"Spanish, German, Arabic, Urdu, Swahili. No Oriental languages yet."

"Yet? You're going to learn what? Chinese?"

"Come on, Benita. Move it." Then, as she went back into the bedroom, he called, "I lust for a job over at State. Besides, I like learning languages. Hurry up, will you!" He dropped to a chair and put his head in his hands, trying to remember when he'd last had some sleep.

She turned on the device and dropped it in the left-hand pocket, along with the nail file and the gun, leaving the right-hand pocket empty for her wallet, her checkbook, and her reading glasses snatched up from the bedside table. She picked up her bag and started for the elevator, calling over her shoulder, "Okay, I'm ready, let's go."

There was no warning of the attack. Two of the huge windows along the living room wall burst against the curtains that had been pulled across them. Something very large came through the curtains.

Chad ran for the bedroom where he thought Benita was. Benita, who had been summoning the elevator on the landing, Sasquatch sniffing at her heels, heard the crash, dropped her suitcase, turned and dashed down the fire stairs, slamming the door shut behind her and barely missing Sasquatch's tail. She was on the second floor. The second floor had windows. Without stopping to think about it, she went on down another flight, dragged the dog into the supply room, and then checked both the supply room doors to be sure they were locked. The doors were steel. According to Simon, they were set in masonry walls, which might mean they'd be difficult to get through, though she wouldn't bet on it. She leaned against the heavy table in the middle of the room, panting. They must have taken Chad. There was no place to hide up there. Though, of course, maybe they didn't want him and would just let him go. Maybe. Or take him and eat him.

She gagged.

Outside the burglar alarm was ringing itself silly, a clangor one could hear blocks away. Supposedly the alarm was wired to the police department, and they should come looking.

There were sounds in the stairwell outside the door. Banging on the door itself.

"We've got your friend," said a mechanical voice from outside. "We're not going to hurt either of you, though we might hurt him in order to get you out of there. Either that or go get your son. He's not far off. We could take him apart. Like a lobster."

Chad's voice, half muffled, "Don't listen to them, Benita . . ." Then a few mrphls and snrfs, to no purpose.

She listened for the sound of sirens, hearing none, holding her breath. Of course, police didn't have to run their sirens when they were on the way to a burglary, it's just they always did on TV.

"We will now go get your son," said the mechanical voice.

"Grumfissit, quosimik qualad digga," said something from behind Benita. "Likkashiz."

"Don't bother," echoed the translator from Benita's pocket. "I followed her down here. I'll bring her out."

Something invisible grabbed her by her neck, not strangling, just lifting, the door opened and she was thrown through it, to be caught by a bunch of tangled tentacles on the other side. The invisible something buffeted Benita, knocking her down, and a lengthened tentacle seized her and dragged her up two flights of stairs, her legs bumping on each step, then across her living room and out the broken window. Something told her to go to sleep, which she promptly did while the beings retreated, burdened with the two humans. Sasquatch, who had followed Benita up the stairs, ran to the broken windows, thrust his head through the shattered glass and howled. Across the street, a light went on. The burglar alarm continued clanging. The phone rang without stopping.

Some minutes later, Simon, the police, and the FBI, previously alerted by Chad, arrived almost simultaneously.

On Sunday morning, many of the usual religious broadcasts were preempted by news departments who chose to air parts of a tape received from the envoys during the night. This, so said the accompanying letter, explained the fate that had overtaken some notables in and around Washington. It was a tape so packed with scientific jargon that it was unsuitable for broadcast without extensive commentary. Even the newsmen could make little sense of it until biologists and chemists had been called in to interpret.

The experts, more than a little harried looking, appeared on the screen to comment in plain language, though with all the references to "host animals" and "larvae" and so forth, the public was not enlightened at once. The matter became more understandable with the showing of hastily created computer animations of animals being punctured by the Inkleozese, eggs being inserted, eggs hatching into larvae, and larvae growing and ramifying until it was time to chew their way out. The only suitable animals on Earth, so the biologists conceded, were male humans. Part of the tape received from the Pistach listed the names of the hosts chosen on Earth, already impregnated public figures, legislators and media personalities who had publicly espoused the pro-life cause.

Since the larvae now deeply anchored into the torsos of these men had defense mechanisms against being removed, the Inkleozese could have chosen anyone, the tape made clear. Nonetheless, the Inkleozese preferred calm, uninterrupted development of their offspring, and they had therefore chosen only men who could be depended upon not to threaten the lives of the tiny moving, swallowing, heart- beating Inklit babies now snuggled beneath their capacious rib cages. In any case, the tape was specific, trying to remove them would be a very bad thing to do, since it might permanently destroy any chance of Earth's joining the Confederation.

The Pistach apologized for the inconvenience, saying that normally Inkleozese do not travel away from their home world during larval-transfer seasons. This, however, had been an emergency brought about by the unwarranted and unconscionable intrusions of the predators and had been thought acceptable purely because of the pro-life philosophy of the men in question and of those others like them who would be needed as hosts for the eggs of the hundreds of Inkleozese who hadn't laid yet. Since each Inkleozese produced from ten to twenty eggs, a large number of those in the pro-life camp could illustrate their faithfulness to that position.

The preferred hosts would be men of middle age, medium to large size, good health, and temperate habits. Once impregnated, the hosts would find it necessary to stay quietly at home for the following thirteen months, the period of maturation of the larvae, until the larvae began to chew their way out, at which time the Inkleozese would supervise the process in order to minimize any risk to the hosts. The Inkleozese wished to convey their regret that no anesthetic could be used at that time, as it might adversely affect the infant Inklit, but since most Inkliti chewed their way out in from twelve to fifteen hours, the pain, though severe, would not be protracted. Classes in breathing and meditation to assist relaxed larval emergence would be offered to the men in question.

Lupe heard all this on the car radio on her way back from Baltimore, where she had spent the previous day with her mother who was in considerable discomfort but not seriously injured. The break was clean and would heal. Lupe had been greatly relieved about this, though her relief was short-lived.

No sooner had she put down her worries about Mama than she had been seized with new concerns about By. Though she had called repeatedly, she had been unable to reach him. She had been trying since Friday night, and he did not answer the phone. On Saturday evening, she had gone so far as to call one of his aides and ask the aide to check the hospitals for possible accident victims. The aide had, instead, checked the house and found the car in the drive, which he had duly reported to Lupe along with his conjecture that By was probably spending the weekend with a golfing buddy.

By played golf rarely and without enthusiasm, and Lupe was unaware that he had any golfing buddies. He did, however, enjoy sailing and he had a few sailing friends. It was possible that with her gone, he might have gone to the shore for the weekend. One thing was certain: he would most annoyed if she raised a fuss trying to find him.

When Lupe heard about the Inkleozese, however, she knew at once that Byron was exactly the kind of person the ET's were selecting. Outspokenly opposed to reproductive choice. Healthy. Of a good size.

Of middle age, not too young (too many hormones) or too old (insufficient hormones). She knew in her heart that Byron was one of the selectees, he had to be, and that's why she hadn't been able to reach him!

She also knew, as probably the Inkleozese did not, that Byron was almost psychotic on the subject of pregnancy. If anyone could be said to be phobic about anything, By Morse was phobic about parturition.

Not just his bad experiences with Janet, but something that had happened to him in childhood, something he would not talk about.

She got home around noon. Normally By would have been up by now, maybe even have left to have lunch. He wasn't downstairs, however, and his car was still in the drive. She found him still in bed, very soundly asleep. She shook him, and he came groggily out of his doze.

"Ah, Lupe. You back already?"

"It's Sunday noon. I said I'd be back today."

"Sunday? Can't be. What happened to Saturday?"

"It was yesterday. What's . . . what's the matter? What time did you get to bed Friday night? Did you have ... ah, bad dreams? Something like that?"

"Had a hell of a nightmare," he responded. "That's probably why I overslept. Hey, be a sweetheart and bring me a cup of coffee, will you? I can't get the cobwebs out!"

He went to the shower, pausing to glance at himself in the mirror. He seemed to remember . . . some kind of an injury? No, no injury. A tiny little bruise next to his ribs, with a pimple of scab at its middle.

He had probably bumped into something, the car door maybe. He turned on the shower, letting the hot water pour soothingly over him. The bathroom door opened, and Lupe brought him coffee, setting it on the vanity while he dried himself off. The towel wrapped around him, he turned to pick up the cup. She was watching him warily, her eyes roving over him, settling on the little bruise.

"What's that?" she asked, leaning forward to touch it.

The ceiling fell on him. He screamed, threw the coffee cup at her and cowered away from her as though she had been a monster. Scalded, she shrieked back at him as she turned on the cold water and thrust her reddened arms into the flow. Luckily, he'd missed her face.

"What in the hell is the matter with you?" she cried, knowing with sick certainly what was the matter with him.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," he gabbled, slowly pulling himself upright. "When you touched me, the pain went through me like . . . like a knife."

She took a deep breath. "By, sweetie, I think you'd better put your robe on and come watch TV for a little bit."

"My God, woman, you know how I feel about Sunday TV"

"Yeah," she said. "I know. But you'd still better catch up on what's been happening before you leave the house."

The president appeared on the screen late Sunday afternoon to verify what the ET's had said on their tape.

"Yes, it's true that a number of men have been impregnated. This may be inconvenient for them, but all the men in question have asserted year after year that convenience really isn't the issue. They have told us that the issue is reverence for life, and since these men have gone on record as supporting such reverence, we agree with the Pistach that now is the time for them to put their careers on hold and their bodies on the line, just as they have expected others to do."

"Mr. President, Mr. President." Hands waved. One was selected. "Mr. President, is it mere coincidence that none of the men selected are Democrats?"

The president looked at the ceiling. "Yes. I should think it is purely coincidence."

He got through this without smiling, but some of the reporters in the audience kept holding up their notebooks to hide the fact they were cracking up. In the evening, one of the doctors who'd been involved in treating the pregnant men appeared on a special Larry King Live and told why the larvae couldn't be removed. Each growing creature sent extensions of itself into the vital organs, and any attempt to remove them ended up killing the host. These extensions withdrew in the days preceding emergence.

"The Inkleozese furnished us with information regarding the care of the men who are carrying the larvae," the doctor said. "They will need to avoid stress, to get regular exercise, plenty of sleep, plenty of liquids, plus calcium and iron supplements. They must avoid alcohol and tobacco and all drugs except vitamins. We're assured the condition will last for only thirteen months, as with elephants."

CNN Headline News had pictures of Senator Morse being brought by ambulance to a local hospital earlier that day. The screaming, flailing form on the screen bore little resemblance to the dignified and poised Senator Morse with whom his constituents were familiar. Off camera, after everyone had come to his or her wit's end, he had actually been put in restraints, though this was known only to himself, Lupe, and the hospital staff. It had to be restraints because the guidelines from the Inkleozese forbade sedatives.

On hastily sought advice of counsel, no hospital was prepared to risk the wrath of the Inkleozese by failure to follow the guidelines.

Lupe stayed at the senator's side until he finally settled down, though it took awhile, and by evening, he had stopped raving. He sent Lupe home to get the car, she had come with him in the ambulance, and his clothing. Upon the arrival of both, he checked himself out of the hospital and stopped at a pay phone on the way home to call McVane.

Chad's cronies at the FBI had been keeping tabs on the senator for some time. The agents following him had a directional microphone that could pick up, so the technician bragged, a gnat fart at half a mile, and they had no trouble recording both sides of the conversation.

Morse yelled, "Call the damned woman, McVane."

"She's not there, Senator. She agreed to testify before your committee on Monday, but we couldn't get hold of you, so the predators have already picked her up."

"Testify? Picked her up? You mean they've kidnapped her? Where is she?"

In the heat of the moment McVane had neglected to arrange contact with the predators, which he admitted to, and the senator subsided into his car in a state of shock. Lupe drove him home while he fumed and snorted and made threats both general and specific about what he would do to this one or that one when this matter was over. On arrival home, he called his secretary and several staff members and dictated a press release to be sent out immediately, charging the president and the intermediary with complicity in the attack upon his body, which, he said, he intended to prove as soon as the intermediary could be found.

SIX SOUTHERN SENATORS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED.

ALL SIX MEN PREGNANT, ACCORDING TO PHYSICIANS.

TWO HOSPITALIZED FOR HYSTERIA, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROME.

LDS ELDERS REQUIRE RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE ONLY.

UTAH SENATOR EXCOMMUNICATED.

IMMORAL BEHAVIOR WITH ET ALLEGED.

"I was raped," he says, denying reports he was on drugs when admitted to hospital.

"He was high as a kite, laughing like a lunatic," reported ER nurse Blanche Smith. "And he was wearing tight jeans. Didn't some judge just recently rule you can't rape somebody wearing tight jeans?

THIS ISN'T A BABY, SAYS TV PERSONALITY REQUESTING ABORTION.

INFANT ET IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE WITHOUT KILLING OVERWEIGHT HOST.

INKLEOZESE THREATEN REPRISAL IF LARVAE INJURED.

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL IN EMERGENCY SESSION.

ARAB NATIONS DEMAND ACCESS TO INTERMEDIARY,.

INSIST ON IMMUNITY FROM PREGNANCY.

IMMEDIATE CURE DEMANDED FOR INFECTIOUS UGLY.

Benita, bound-LOST WEEKEND Benita dreamed she was rocking in Mami's hammock, the one on the back portal of the old house, where she and her brothers had sometimes slept during the summer. It was a soothing motion, though subtly wrong, for her legs were rocking much more widely than her head. As though she'd gotten all tangled up in the hammock and one end had come loose, leaving her dangling upright. She heard one of her brothers moan, and she opened her eyes to locate him and tell him to be still, he was making her seasick.

The portal posts were gone. There was no roof. Only the moonlit sky above her, against treetops that bent and swayed in a soft breeze, just as she did. She tried to move her arms and found she couldn't. She was wrapped, not uncomfortably tightly, but tight enough that she couldn't move. She turned her head to see Chad, head on his chest, and beyond him three other figures, long bundles hung in the treetops. And beyond that, heavens, a dozen or more others, just hanging there. Like in the Hobbit. Spider food. Rock- a-bye baby, she thought. Rocky-bye. Below her, in a moonlit clearing, stumpy trees wandered about among squat, furry creatures, occasionally turning toward some vacancy and gesturing at it, as though there was someone there.

As, undoubtedly, there was. She remembered at once what had happened. She and Chad had been about to leave, but the Wulivery had bashed in the front windows and grabbed them, and then something had told them firmly to go to sleep. That had to have been a Fluiquosm, one of the vacancies below her in the forest.

She risked another look below. The Wulivery and the Xankatikitiki were busy doing something else and were paying no attention to her. After a time, she realized what it was they were doing and hastily averted her eyes. Evidently they'd stopped somewhere en route in order to hunt. Or maybe they'd just taken something down out of the larder.

Contorting herself, she managed to swing the cocoon until it bumped into Chad. He moaned softly, but did not waken. The membrane that wrapped her was quite elastic. Though her hand was pressed against her side, she could clench her fist, move her fingers, feel with her fingers . . . feel the sharply pointed nail file she had dropped in the large flapped shirt pocket after she had filed down her broken nail. Also in the pocket, yes, by all that was holy, the handgun Chad had given her when he walked in the door. And the translator! She'd pocketed it along with the gun. She'd been all packed. Chad had left the car down below, she was telling him she was ready . . . and that's when the windows fell in.

Moving carefully, inch by inch, she bent her elbow and moved her hand up, over the pocket flap, then fiddled with the flap, rolling it up under her hand so the hand could go down again, into the pocket.

Grasp the nail file. Bend the elbow again, bring the file out of the pocket, jab the membrane she was wrapped in. Flexible. Like a rubber balloon. Not infinitely flexible, however, for it punctured very nicely on about the fourth try. Another puncture just below the first one, then a few above and a few more below, working up and down to make a dotted line, tear here, r-r-rip. Actually, it didn't rip, which was lucky, or she might have fallen a considerable distance, but it did loosen. After ten minutes of careful effort, the wrapping was loose enough that she could get the gun out with her left hand and pass it across her body to her right hand. After thumbing off the safety, she put it in the right pocket. Chad had pointed out the safety, first thing in the apartment, or she might not have remembered.

The apartment. Lord, Sasquatch! He'd probably hidden under the bed, and hooray for him, if so. And the alarm had gone off, so her absence wouldn't go unnoticed for long. Not that it would help anything, since no one had a clue where she was, including herself, except that she was hanging in a maple tree.

The silhouette of the leaves against the moon was unmistakable. A large maple tree, just starting to shed its leaves, somewhere in a forest which could be anywhere from Maine to Wisconsin, from Canada to Virginia. Probably Virginia or Maryland. Why carry her farther than they needed to? The branch from which she was hung was only a foot over her head, and another sizeable branch went off to her right, just below shoulder level. After a few moments' rest, she decided the lower one of these was reachable. She passed the file to her right hand and made an arm hole, somewhat easier this time since the membrane was looser, and got her arm out and over the branch. No good. She needed her right hand to work with.

She contorted herself to spin the cocoon until she could get her left arm out and over the branch, pulling herself halfway onto it. That was better. Now she could make more holes with her right hand, enough to extricate one leg, an inch at a time, which immediately loosened the wrapper enough that the other leg came out easily and there she was, heaving herself up to lie along the branch, the flaccid wrapper hanging around her like the skin of a sucked grape.

If one of them looked up, they'd see that. Better they didn't see that. Carefully, she gathered the wrapper up onto the branch, stuffing it under her. From below, it shouldn't be evident at all. There'd be one bundle missing, but among so many, maybe they wouldn't notice it.

The branch beneath her was, however, somewhat narrower than her body, which could be noticeable from below. She eased back toward the trunk of the tree, the branch thickening in that direction, until she was totally hidden from below except for one eye and a bit of forehead resting in a fork of the branch to keep watch on what happened down there. Now, if she could just figure out a way to get Chad awake and moving, maybe they could escape . . .

Carlos! She hadn't been thinking at all! The three hanging bundles on beyond Chad had to be her family! Well, two of them, Carlos and Bert, plus the unknown girl. She rested her head on her hands, fighting an insane desire to scream. No way she could get all five of them out and down this tree . . . no, not this tree. The other three weren't even in this tree, they were hung from another tree. It was nearby, but she was no damned flying squirrel!

Chad, then. At least Chad. He had been armed, too, when they were taken. A shoulder holster, with his jacket over it. Perhaps they'd paid no more attention to that than they had the gun in her pocket.

Thinking of which, she reached back along her body and carefully buttoned the pocket flap. The gun was a small one. What had Chiddy and Vess said? You shoot a Xankatikitiki in the head. And you shoot a Wulivery just below the tentacles, where the seven eye holes are. Or, shoot the breathing apparatus on top, which would immobilize the creature and eventually kill it. And if you can locate a Fluiquosm, just shoot it anywhere. Any wound of the flight organ pretty well disabled them.

She crawled out on the branch once more, taking another fork that brought her alongside Chad's cocoon. She reached out, pinched his cheek, slapped him lightly, whispered in his ear. No reaction. Either he was unconscious or he'd been . . . whatever the Fluiquosm did to people. Convinced him he was in paradise, maybe. Convinced him he was a baby in Mommy's womb. Maybe if she cut him some slack, he'd suck his thumb. She put her head down again and fought tears. If Chad couldn't help, who the hell could?

Below her, the eerie sound of untranslated alien speech. She had the translator in her pocket, and she knew it had been on in the stockroom because it had translated the speech of whatever had grabbed her.

Had it been damaged in transit? She fished it out of her pocket, holding it to her ear to hear it humming.

There were no other buttons, no other controls. What had Chiddy said to her . . . yell at it? Not damn likely, here where she was a minute away from being sucked like a orange!

She whispered, "Translate what you hear into English, very softly."

"Is this soft enough?" whispered the translator.

"Very good," she said, fighting an urge to giggle hysterically.

"The Wulivery is saying he sees no reason not to eat Chad now, or if not him, then the girl. The Fluiquosm say they do not want to partake of Bert or Carlos, inasmuch as they both smoke and drink much alcohol which makes the blood taste funny.