Contact - Carl Sagan [153]
"Well, that sounds all right. For that matter I have a bit of a headache, too. Take care of yourself, Ellie. Remember everything, so you'll be able to tell it to me…next time we meet."
"I will," Ellie promised.
They kissed and wished each other Well. Devi stepped over the threshold and vanished. The door closed behind her. Afterward, Ellie thought she had caught a whiff of curry.
She brushed her teeth in salt water. A certain fastidious streak had always been a part of her nature. She break-fasted on coconut milk. Carefully she brushed accumulated sand off the exterior surfaces of the microcamera system and its tiny arsenal of videocassettes on which she had recorded wonders. She washed the palm frond in the surf, as she had done the day she found it on Cocoa Beach just before the launch up to Methuselah.
The morning was already warm and she decided to take a swim. Her clothes carefully folded on the palm frond, she strode boldly out into the surf. Whatever else, she thought, the extraterrestrials are unlikely to find themselves aroused by the sight of a naked woman, even if she is pretty well preserved. She tried to imagine a microbiologist stirred to crimes of passion after viewing a paramecium caught in flagrante delicto in mitosis.
Languidly, she floated on her back, bobbing up and down, her slow rhythm in phase with the arrival of successive wave crests. She tried to imagine thousands of comparable…chambers, simulated worlds, whatever these were-each a meticulous copy of the nicest part of someone's home planet. Thousands of them, each with sky and weather, ocean, geology, and indigenous life indistinguishable from the originals. It seemed an extravagance, although it also suggested that a satisfactory outcome was within reach. No matter what your resources, you don't manufacture a landscape on this scale for five specimens from a doomed world.
On the other hand…The idea of extraterrestrials as zookeepers had become something of a clichй. What if this sizable Station with its profusion of docking ports and environments was actually a zoo? "See the exotic animals in their native habitats," she imagined some snail-headed barker shouting. Tourists come from all over the Galaxy, especially during school vacations. And then when there's a test, the Stationmasters temporarily move the critters and the tourists out, sweep the beach free of footprints, and give the newly arriving primitives a half day of rest and recreation before the test ordeal begins.
Or maybe this was how they stocked the zoos. She thought about the animals locked away in terrestrial zoos who were said to have experienced difficulties breeding in captivity. Somersaulting in the water, she dived beneath the surface in a moment of self-consciousness. She took a few strong strokes in toward the beach, and for the second time in twenty-four hours wished that she had had a baby.
There was no one about, and not a sail on the horizon. A few seagulls were stalking the beach, apparently looking for crabs. She wished she had brought some bread to give them. After she was dry, she dressed and inspected the doorway again. It was merely waiting. She felt a continuing reluctance to enter. More than reluctance. Maybe dread.
She withdrew, keeping it in view. Beneath a palm tree, her knees drawn up under her chin, she looked out over the long sweep of white sandy beach.
After a while she got up and stretched a little. Carrying the frond and the microcamera with one hand, she approached the door and turned the knob. It opened slightly. Through the crack she could see the whitecaps offshore. She gave it another push, and it swung open without a squeak. The beach, bland and disinterested, stared back at her. She shook her head and returned to the tree, resuming her pensive posture.
She wondered about the others. Were they now in some outlandish testing facility avidly checking away on the multiple-choice questions? Or was it an oral examination? And who were the examiners? She felt the uneasiness well up once again. Another