The Forge of God by Greg Bear Page B

small wash-up area and lab table, and three shuttered windows mounted in the long curved wall. Harry stood by the bare lab table and rubbed his hand along the shiny black plastic top, examining his fingers briefly for dust—the gesture a professor might make in a classroom. Arthur's mouth twitched in a brief smile. Harry caught the twitch and lifted his eyebrows: So?
    "Our Guest is behind the middle window," Hall said. He spoke into an intercom mounted to the left of the middle window. "Our inspectors are here. Is Colonel Phan ready?"
    "I am ready," a soft, almost feminine voice replied over a speaker.
    "Then let's get started."
    The shutters, mounted on their side of the window, clacked and began to rise. The first layer of glass behind was curtained in black. "This is not a one-way mirror or anything fancy," Hall said. "We're not concealing our appearance from the Guest."
    "Interesting," Harry said.
    "The Guest has requested a particular environment, and we've done our best to meet its requirements," Lieutenant Sanborn said. "It is most comfortable in conditions of semidarkness, at a temperature of about fifteen degrees Celsius. It seems to enjoy a dry atmosphere with approximately the same mix of gases found in our own air. We believe it exited its normal environment at about six o'clock on the morning of the twenty-ninth of September to explore… well, frankly, we don't know why it left, but it was caught by daylight and apparently succumbed to the glare and heat by about nine-thirty."
    "That doesn't make sense," Harry said. "Why would it leave its… environment… without protection? Why not make all the necessary precautions and plan the first excursion carefully?"
    "We don't know," Colonel Hall said. "We have not interrogated the Guest or caused it any undue strain. We supply it with whatever it requests."
    "It makes its requests in English?" Arthur asked.
    "Yes, in quite passable English."
    Arthur shook his head in disbelief. "Has anyone called Duncan Lunan?"
    "We haven't 'called' anybody but people with an immediate need to know," Hall said. "Who is Duncan Lunan?"
    "A Scottish astronomer," Arthur explained. "He made a fair mess of a controversy about twenty-three years ago when he claimed to have evidence of an alien space probe orbiting near the Earth. A probe he thought might be from Epsilon Bootis. His evidence consisted of patterns of anomalous returned radio signals that seemed to have been bounced from an object in space. Like a great many pioneers, he had to face disappointment and recant, after a fashion."
    "No, sir," Hall said, again with his enigmatic smile. "We haven't spoken to Mr. Lunan."
    "Pity. I can think of a hundred scientists who should be here," Arthur said.
    "Eventually, perhaps," Hall allowed. "Not right now."
    "No. Of course not. Well?" Arthur gestured at the dark window.
    "Colonel Phan will give us a direct view in a few minutes."
    "Who is Colonel Phan?" Harry asked.
    "He's an expert in space medicine from Colorado Springs," Hall said. "We couldn't find anyone better qualified on such short notice, although I doubt we could find a better man for the job even if we searched all year."
    "You didn't ask us," Harry said. Arthur nudged him gently in the arm.
    The lights in the viewing room dimmed. "I hope someone's making videotapes of our Guest," Harry whispered pointedly to Arthur as they pulled their seats close to the window.
    "We have a digital recorder and three high-resolution cameras working around the clock," Lieutenant Sanborn explained.
    "All right," Harry said.
    Harry was obviously nervous. For his own part, Arthur felt both alert and vaguely anesthetized. He could not quite accept that an age-old question had been answered affirmatively, and that they were about to see the answer.
    The black curtain drew aside. Beyond another thick pane of glass framed in stainless steel, they saw a small, dimly lighted, almost empty square room, watery green in color. In the middle of the room was a