"Here! In the Palace! One of the aliens!"
Moses was just finishing breakfast in the cafeteria the next morning, when a young office worker sat down at the table next to him, with news for others at that table that one of the aliens had just been captured at the airport, trying to hijack a plane. "They're bringing him here now," the informant explained. Moses got up from his chair and walked over to the table where the announcement had been made. Because the people seated there were all staff members, and because they all recognised him, they did nothing to stop Moses from listening in.
"They're bringing him here?" asked a woman at the table nervously. "But he could kill us!"
The man next to her gave a little poke with his elbow as he glanced quickly toward Moses. Locals had come to think of Moses as Dangchao's son, even though the young man had hardly even met his benefactor. In the minds of most palace workers, anything said to Moses would be passed on to Dangchao.
"Obviously, Dangchao is going to use him as bait... to get the other one here," the elbow-jabber piped in. "Don't worry, Naomi, Dangchao knows what he's doing. He's the most awesome leader the world has ever known. Take it from me, we're safe as virgins in chastity belts." The others laughed nervously.
They were clearly not convinced.
In the palace? Moses thought to himself, as he tried to imagine where Dangchao would put the alien.
He turned and walked away from the table, then wandered the corridors of the palace in search of the alien, before coming to a room that had special U.N. troops guarding it. The soldiers recognised Moses, and so, when he indicated that he wanted to go in, they did what they would not have done for anyone else in the world at that moment... they let him in without a pass.
"Where's your partner?" Dangchao growled.
Moses could see only the back of a chubby man with long brown hair, who was seated facing Dangchao.
"I don't know," the man answered quietly.
He doesn't look like an alien to me, thought Moses. He's just a harmless old man.
"Maybe I should hold you here for a few days and see if he turns up."
The alien said nothing.
"We could have some fun with you."
"And God could have some fun with you!" the alien shot back. There was an air of authority in the man's voice. Perhaps he was not entirely harmless after all.
But there was something else in his voice which was even more significant. He had an accent... an Australian accent.
It sounds so much like Kyme, Moses thought to himself; but then any male Australian accent would have sounded like Kyme's, since Kyme was the only Australian he knew apart from Winky.
But from what Moses could see over the back of the seat, the man did look a lot like Kyme... a bit greyer, perhaps, and a bit heavier than Moses had remembered Kyme to be, but very much like him, all the same.
Dangchao spoke. "I was only kidding," he said.
He's afraid of him, Moses thought. But Dangchao went on. "I just want to ask your friend some questions. We really need to work together... for the good of the whole world."
Moses changed his thinking once again. Dangchao was not afraid at all. The staffer in the cafeteria was correct. He was diplomatically using one alien as bait to attract the other. But surely the aliens would know that, and they would not fall for such a trick.
Just then, the alien turned in Moses' direction, as though he had been aware all along that Moses was watching him. He looked deeply into Moses' expressionless eyes for a second or two, smiled, and then winked, before turning in the opposite direction and walking toward the door on the far side of the room.
He did not even wait for clearance from the Secretary-General.
"Go with him!" Dangchao said to an aide, and the man raced to catch up with the palace guest.
"I'll show you to your room," the aide said as he approached the alien.
For Moses Chikati, however, the man would never be thought of as an alien again. He was, instead, Kyme Rosenberg, Moses' personal friend and advisor, with whom he had lost contact a couple of years earlier!
The young man's mental faculties were such that he could not experience shock, fear, disappointment, or anything more than a slight increase in curiosity in response to what he had just observed, but it did not stop his mind from sifting through events in his past as he sought an explanation for how a kindly old Quaker from Australia could be the alien monster that had threatened to undermine all that the United Nations Secretary-General had done to prosper and stabilise the nations of the world.
Moses left by the same door through which he had entered. It was around the corner from the one that Kyme had used, and so by the time he reached the hallway on that end of the room, Kyme and Dangchao's assistant had apparently disappeared around yet another corner some where down the long corridor.
Moses wanted to see Kyme, but only just. He was struggling with an urge to just forget about it. What difference did it make how Kyme had come to be there?
There were books to read in his room, and exercises that Moshe had laid out for him to do. But in the end, he decided that the exercises were not important, and he just wandered down one hall way after another looking for his old friend instead.
Half an hour later, and Moses had back tracked all the way to where Kyme had first disappeared. He discovered that the guards who had been outside the interrogration room were now outside the room immediately next to it. Moses reached out with his good arm to open the door, but he was stopped by one of the guards.
"Sorry, we can't let you go in this time, son. It's too dangerous."
Moses was about to say, "But he's my friend," when he suddenly lost interest and wandered off toward his own room.