"Now, why would I want a laser-equipped tank?"

Ted shrugged. "For the fun of it?" The car bumped as it hit the road, bounced once and settled heavily. Ted touched the brakes lightly to bring the cruising speed down.

"You could get it, you know, if you really wanted it. Because you're-um, military. Special, you know? That's where the clearances came from too. All you have to do is take a couple hours training. And prove you have a real need for it."

"I'll pass, thanks."

"Well, keep it in mind. Could you imagine the look on Duke's face-or Obie's-if you drove up in one of those?"

I thought about it. No, I couldn't imagine it.

Ted turned onto a ramp and pulled up at a convenient side entrance. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure. Uh, nice meeting you, Dinnie." I stepped back as they rolled away. Spiralism?

I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets and headed into the hotel-huh? What was this? Oh, Dr. Obama's lockbox. I'd almost forgotten I was carrying it.

I found a row of terminals and slid into a booth. It took only a moment to register with CORDCOM. My card disappeared into the slot, then rolled out again, overprinted with a yellow stripe. A large C in a red box had also been printed in the upper right corner. Was that it?

I cleared and punched for Directory, Lieutenant Colonel Ira Wallachstein.

The screen flashed: SORRY, NOT FOUND. Huh?

Maybe I had miskeyed. I typed it again.

SORRY, NOT FOUND.

Well, that was ... weird. I called up PROJECT JEFFERSON next, tried to list its personnel.

SORRY, NOT AVAILABLE.

Tried the Denver Area Military Directory. He wasn't listed there either.

I sat puzzled for a moment, wondering what to do next. I scratched my head. Why would Dr. Obama give me a package for somebody who wasn't here? Or maybe this Colonel Wallachstein had moved on and hadn't let Obama know? Maybe I should call Dr. Obama and ask. No, something told me not to.

I took the box out of my pocket and looked at it. There was nothing extraordinary about it, just a one-piece lightweight unit. Rounded corners. No markings, other than the printed keyboard and the lock. Not much rattle to it either. I had to think about this. I didn't want to destroy it. Not yet. That would feel like failure.

I slid it back into my pocket. Maybe tonight, back at the barracks. Maybe I'd missed something obvious.

I cleared the board and called up the day's conference schedule. The general session on Chtorran biology and behavior began at ten o'clock. Apparently it was a weekly session. I scanned the rest of the calendar, hard-copied it, logged off and went in search of breakfast.

I had bagels and lox and strawberries and cream. I ate alone, and I was still in better company than Ted.

THE MAN at the podium looked unhappy.

There were too many empty seats. The auditorium was only a third full.

I hesitated at the back of the room. The audience had already begun to segregate themselves into sections.

The military attendees were seated up close, but on the sides. I hadn't realized it was possible to sit at attention. The funnylooking types were all in the first five rows. Of course, I'd never been to a convention where it hadn't been so. The serious types scattered themselves in the center of the room. The turbans and the burnooses-and there were an awful lot of them-were milling in the aisles, chattering away at each other as fast as they could, ignoring the frowning man on the dais.

The room roared with the noise of a thousand separate conversations-a babbling torrent of words. Didn't they realize how loud they all were? Each one was shouting to be heard above all the rest, and as each one raised his or her voice, all the rest became correspondingly louder too. It wasn't hard to see why the man at the podium was so unhappy.

I found an empty row halfway to the front and took a seat near the center. I put a fresh clip into my recorder and slipped it back into my pocket.

The unhappy man stepped to the edge of the stage and whispered something to an aide, the aide shrugged, the man looked unhappier. He checked his watch, I checked mine-the session was already fifteen minutes late. He stepped back to the podium and tapped the microphone. "Gentlemen? Ladies?" He cleared his throat. "If you would please find seats, we can begin-?"

It didn't work. The noise of the conversations only increased as each speaker shouted to make himself heard over the public address system. I could see that this was going to take a while.

"Delegates? If you please-?" He tried again. "I'd like to call this session to order."

No one paid attention. Each and every one of them had something so important to say that it superseded every other event in the auditorium.

The unhappy man tried one more time, then picked up a tiny mallet and started striking an old-style ship's bell that was perched on top of the podium. He hit it four quick times, then four times more, then again and again. He kept on striking it, over and over, a steady rhythmic dinging that could not be ignored. I saw him looking at his watch while he did it. Apparently he'd been through this before.

The groups began to break up. The various conversations splintered and broke off-they couldn't compete any longer-and the participants began drifting into their separate seats. The only conversation still going full bore was one between three deaf women--or maybe they were interpreters-in Ameslan.

"Thank you!" the unhappy man said at last. He touched some buttons on the podium in front of him and the screen behind him lit up with an official-looking announcement. It repeated itself every fifteen seconds, each time shifting to a different language: French, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili, Arabic-I couldn't identify the rest. The English version said: "English interpretations of foreign language speakers may be heard on channel fifteen. Thank you."

He waited while the various delegates inserted earpieces or put on headphones. They rustled and gobbled among themselves, each one taking an impossibly long time.

Something on the right caught my eye-Lizard! Major Tirelli! She was on the arm of a tall black colonel; they were laughing and chatting together as they found seats three rows forward. I wondered if I should call hello, then decided against it. It would probably only annoy her, and besides the auditorium was filling up now and it would be conspicuous, and probably embarrassing. I wondered if I should save a couple of seats for Ted and Dinnie-except I didn't want to-until finally the question was answered for me when a dark, handsome woman sat down on my right, and a second later, a pair of lieutenants took two of the three seats on my left. The handsome woman was in a lab coat and was carrying a clipboard. She switched it on while she waited and began reading through some notes.

I took my recorder out of my pocket to turn it on, and she touched my arm. "Not a good idea," she said. "Some of this may be classified."

"Oh," I said. "Thanks." And dropped it back into my pocket, thumbing it on anyway as I did so. I don't think she saw.

The unhappy man began banging his bell again. "I think we can begin now. For those of you who don't know, I'm Dr. Olmstead, Dr. Edward K. Olmstead, and I am the acting director of the Extraterrestrial Studies Group of the National Science Center here in Denver. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome all of you to this special session of the Continuing International Conference on Extraterrestrial Affairs.

"I am required by the rules of this conference to remind you that much of the material that we will be presenting here is generally classified on a need-to-know basis. While that includes all of our registered attendees and their respective staffs, we still want to stress that the material is for your use only and should be treated as confidential. We are not yet prepared to release some of this information to the general public. The reasons for this will be discussed in tomorrow's session on culture shock. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Thank you.