Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [98]
The Pitar did not give indication of being under any unusual stress, but then, the Pitar never did. It was difficult for the most perceptive at the best of times to tell what they were thinking. They never lost their temper or burst out in uncontrolled laughter. Like their physical appearance, their demeanor was always perfect.
They were alone in the lift. Nadurovina knew that a battery of observers was waiting in the room next to the patient’s, with dozens more cemented to remote monitors and pickups. Every movement of the visiting Pitar would be scrutinized, every word deconstructed, every shift in expression analyzed.
The door loomed ahead. The Pitar looked over and down to smile gently at her. “Are the guards for us or for this individual?”
“For him. As you can imagine we’ve been very interested in what he’s had to say about the destruction of his adopted homeworld.”
“And what has he said?” The Hellenically perfect countenance betrayed no concern, the body movements no agitation.
The military psychiatrist smiled back. “You can ask him yourself.” After identifying herself and her guest to the guards, they were allowed to pass. “I think you’ll find him an interesting subject.”
Still no visible reaction. Why should she have expected anything different? Opening the door, she entered first.
Mallory was sitting up in the bed with Tse in a chair at his side. It was a tableau that had become intimately familiar to Nadurovina over the past week. In that time the patient had put on weight and regained lost muscle tone. Much could be attributed to the attention he had received from the nurse, whose devotion to the single patient whose care she had been charged with looking after exceeded anything that could reasonably have been expected.
Here it was. The moment of confrontation. She could feel the eyes behind the multiple pickups glued to their screens, watching, waiting.
“Good morning, Mr. Mallory, Ms. Tse. I hope you do not mind, but I have brought a guest.” Stepping aside, she bequeathed to the man in the bed an unobstructed view of the visitor.
Mallory’s eyes shifted. He saw the Pitar. As importantly, the Pitar saw him. Nadurovina was not above holding her breath, ready to intervene, spring aside, or call for help as the occasion should demand. She did not know exactly what to expect. No one did. In their intense discussions prior to this moment she believed that she and her colleagues had imagined and discussed every possible scenario.
They were wrong.
“A Pitar.” Mallory’s voice was calm, controlled, absolutely devoid of fear or panic. “Here.” His gaze shifted to the psychiatrist, and he did something even more remarkable. He smiled. “Another of your tests? A little experiment, maybe?”
“Dmis is a member of the delegation that is headquartered on Lombok,” she explained. “He is a real Pitar, not an actor made up to look like one.”
“I can see that.” Did his tone darken ever so slightly, or was Nadurovina reading into it one of the things for which she and her associates were searching? “I know what a Pitar looks like.”
She tensed but made no move to interfere when the alien moved toward the bed. Outside, beyond the wall, she knew that the strike team of armed commandos would have reacted to the alien’s approach by automatically advancing to another level of readiness. To her relief he halted at the foot of the bed.
“So. You survived the disturbing incident that overwhelmed Argus Five.”
“That’s right. I did.” Mallory met the alien’s inscrutable gaze without flinching. “I saw what happened there.”
The Pitar made a small, almost imperceptible gesture whose meaning no one in the room comprehended. “My people are very concerned about what took place.”
Mallory’s mouth set in a tight line. There was no trembling, no quivering that Nadurovina could see. A glance at the readouts of the instruments that monitored the patient’s vitals showed little change, certainly not enough to be considered