night was exceptionally clear, and Vega shone steady and brilliant. From the apparent motion of the constellations across the sky, from the southern hemisphere constellations that she could make out, and from the Big Dipper lying near the northern horizon, she deduced that they were in tropicallatitudes. If all this is a simulation, she thought before falling asleep, they've gone to a great deal of trouble.
She had an odd little dream. The five of them were swimming—naked, unselfconscious, underwater— now poised lazily near a staghorn coral, now gliding into crannies that were the next moment obscured by drifting seaweed. Once she rose to the surface. A ship in the shape of a dodecahedron flew by, low above the water. The walls were transparent, and inside she could see people in dhotis and sarongs, reading newspapers and casually conversing. She dove back underwater. Where she belonged.
Although the dream seemed to go on for a long time, none of them had any difficulty breathing. They were inhaling and exhaling water. They felt no distress—indeed, they were swimming as naturally as fish.
Vaygay even looked a little like a fish—a grouper, perhaps. The water must be fiercely oxygenated, she supposed. In the midst of the dream, she remembered a mouse she had once seen in a physiology laboratory, perfectly content in a flask of oxygenated water, even paddling hopefully with its little front feet. A vermiform tail streamed behind. She tried to remember how much oxygen was needed, but it was too much trouble. She was thinking less and less, she thought. That's all right. Really.
The others were now distinctly fishlike. Devi's fins were translucent. It was obscurely interesting, vaguely sensual. She hoped it would continue, so she could figure something out. But even the question she wanted to answer eluded her. Oh, to breathe warm water, she thought. What will they think of next?Ellie awoke with a sense of disorientation so profound it bordered on vertigo. Where was she? Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, Wyoming, Hokkaido? Or the Strait of Malacca? Then she remembered. It was unclear, to within 30,000 light-years, where in the Milky Way Galaxy shewas; probably the all-time record for disorientation, she thought. Despite the headache, Ellie laughed; and Devi, sleeping beside her, stirred.
Because of the upward slope of the beach—they had reconnoitered out to a kilometer or so the previous afternoon and found not a hint of habitation—direct sunlight had not yet reached her. Ellie was recumbent on a pillow of sand. Devi, just awakening, had slept with her head on the rolled-up jump suit.
“Don't you think there's something candy-assed about a culture that needs soft pillows?” Ellie asked.
“The ones who put their heads in wooden yokes at night, that's who the smart money's on.” Devi laughed and wished her good morning. They could hear shouting from farther up the beach. The three men were waving and beckoning; Ellie and Devi roused themselves and joined them.
Standing upright on the sand was a door. A wooden door—with paneling and a brass doorknob.
Anyway it looked like brass. The door had black-painted metal hinges and was set in two jambs, a lintel, and a threshold. No nameplate. ft was in no way extraordinary. For Earth. “Now go “round the back,” Xi invited. From the back, the door was not there at all. She could see Eda and Vaygay and Xi, Devi standing a little apart, and the sand continuous between the four of them and her. She moved to the side, the heels of her feet moistened by the surf, and she could make out a single dark razor-thin vertical line. She was reluctant to touch it. Returning to the back again, she satisfied herself that there were no shadows or reflections in the air before her, and then stepped through.
“Bravo.” Eda laughed. She turned around and found the closed door before her. “What did you see?” she asked. “A lovely woman strolling through a closed door two centimeters thick.”
Vaygay seemed to be doing well, despite the dearth of cigarettes. “Have you tried opening the door?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Xi replied.
She stepped back again, admiring the apparition. “It looks like something by— What's the name of that French surrealist?” Vaygay asked. “Rene Magritte,” she answered. “He was Belgian.”
“We're agreed, I take it, that this isn't really the Earth,” Devi proposed, her gesture encompassing ocean, beach, and sky.
“Unless we're in the Persian Gulf three thousand years ago, and there are djinns about.” Ellie laughed.
“Aren't you impressed by the care of the construction?”
“All right,” Ellie answered. “They're very good, I'll grant them that. But what's it for? Why go to the trouble of all this detail work?”
“Maybe they just have a passion for getting things right.”
“Or maybe they're just showing off.”
“I don't see,” Devi continued, “how they could know our doors so well. Think of how many different ways there are to make a door. How could they know?”
“It could be television,” Ellie responded. “Vega has received television signals from Earth up to—let's see— 1974 programming. Clearly, they can send the interesting clips here by special delivery in no time flat.
Probably thereto been a lot of doors on television between 1936 and 1974. Okay,” she continued, as if this were not a change of subject, “what do we think would happen if we opened the door and walked in?”
“If we are here to be tested,” said Xi, “on the other side of that door is probably the Test, maybe one for each of us.”
He was ready. She wished she were. The shadows of the nearest palms were now falling on the beach.
Wordlessly they regarded one another. All four of them seemed eager to open the door and step through.
She alone felt some… reluctance. She asked Eda if he would like to go first. We might as well put our best foot forward, she thoughtHe doffed his cap, made a slight but graceful bow, tinned, and approached the door. Ellie ran to him andkissed him on both cheeks. The others embraced him also. He turned again, opened the door, entered, and disappeared into thin air, his striding foot first, his trailing hand last. With the door ajar, there had seemed to be only the continuation of beach and surf behind him. The door dosed. She ran around it, but there was no trace of Eda.
Xi was next. Ellie found herself struck by how docile they all had been, instantly obliging every anonymous invitation proffered. They could have told us where they were taking us, and what all this was for, she thought. It could have been part of the Message, or information conveyed after the Machine was activated. They could have told us we were docking with a simulation of a beach on Earth. They could have told us to expect the door. True, as accomplished as they are, the extraterrestrials might know English imperfectly, with television as their only tutor. Their knowledge of Russian, Mandarin, Tamil, and Hausa would be even more rudimentary. But they had invented the language introduced in the Message primer.
Why not use it? To retain the element of surprise?Vaygay saw her staring at the closed door and asked if she wished to enter next.
`Thanks, Vaygay. I've been thinking. I know it's a little crazy. But it just struck me: Why do we have to jump through every hoop they hold out for us? Suppose we don't do what they ask?”
“Ellie, you are so American. For me, this is just like home. I'm used to doing what the authorities suggest— especially when I have no choice.” He smiled and turned smartly on his heel.
“Don't take any crap from the Grand Duke,” she called after him.
High above, a gull squawked. Vaygay had left the door ajar. There was still only beach beyond. “Are you all right?” Devi asked her. “I'm okay. Really. I just want a moment to myself. I'll be along.”
“Seriously, I'm asking as a doctor. Do you feel all right?”
“I woke up with a headache, and I think I had some very fanciful dreams. I haven't brushed my teeth or had my black coffee. I wouldn't mind reading the morning paper either. Except for all that, really I'm fine.”
“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
