“What can you tell me?” he asked. “More than the little I’ve learned already?”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “They are an ancient race—perhaps the oldest literate civilization in existence. Perhaps the first. They’ve lived through the span of at least two worlds before Earth, likely many more. They cast their minds between bodies and between times, sometimes temporarily as individuals to learn and record, sometimes permanently en masse to survive. Over the course of Earth’s existence, four species serve as their faces. And in each of those times, they record and preserve the history of our world—of every species that lives and dies here.” I paused, angry again. “Except for the species that will never live out their span, because the Yith take it from them. When they’ve just discovered agriculture and are beginning to imagine cities, the entire species wakes one day in the distant past, in alien bodies, facing whatever threat the Yith deemed impossible to survive.”
Spector swallowed visibly. “That’s vile.”
“It is. And yet the eight and more species whose memories they preserve cannot bear the idea of going unrecorded and forgotten. Without the Yith, all of Earth would be lost, including the eldermost and the hy-lameae and the ck’chk’ck and the avolorafuno. So for that boon, we offer our respect.”
“Appeasement?” he asked wryly.
“My people will be the only humans ever to overlap with one of their civilizations. Even if we wished to fight them, I doubt we’d do better than we have against our fellow men.”
He winced at that. “What about Trumbull?”
“The actual Professor Trumbull will be restored to her body in four or five years, with half-lost memories of the Archives: of recording her life story, exploring the cities of the Jurassic, and conversing with the best minds from six billion years of solar history.”
“Ah. That part sounds … not as vile.” He sighed and looked away. “This is probably a stupid question, but in your judgment, are they a threat to national security?”
I stopped walking, blinked, tried to consider the question. Instead the absurdity overtook me and I bent gasping with laughter.
“I said it was a stupid question.”
“I know,” I managed. It took me another minute to regain control. “I’m sorry. It’s just … national security? The Yith don’t interfere with the rise and fall of species, save the ones they take for their own survival. Their only interest in atomic war would be recording the arguments leading up to it before getting out of the way. This weekend is probably the first time Trumbull has considered the existence of the United States beyond the way you’d think about, I don’t know, Atlantis or the Byzantine Empire.” Spector probably didn’t know the history of Atlantis, but I let it pass. “The Yith have the power to bring down worlds, but they handle violent conflict by not existing in the place and time where it occurs. They’re not a threat to your precious state.”
He rubbed his temples. “I suppose that’s a good thing. I still don’t know how to write my report on them.”
I put my hand on his arm, and he jerked in surprise. “I would strongly recommend not writing that report. The only way I can imagine them becoming a threat to national security is if the government impedes their ability to record this era.”
He made a noncommittal noise and looked deeply uncomfortable.
“The universe is full of powerful things that could crush us with a thought,” I said. “Often we survive by remaining unobtrusive and inoffensive.”
“Yes,” he said. “But the powerful take notice, and take offense, on their own terms. Better to insist on one’s right to exist.”
I thought of Peters, and the notice he’d already taken of me and my people. But we were nearing the gate, where two buzz-cut men in dark suits stood grimly on either side. They weren’t stopping people today, merely watching. I kept my head high. Spector nodded as we strolled through, and they nodded back.
“Taking your irregular for a walk?” one asked. His tone made me stiffen, but Spector smiled easily.
“You can let George know we went to pick up lunch. It’ll liven up your report, I’m sure.” When we’d gone a block further, his expression soured. “Idiots, trained by badly behaved monkeys. ‘Hello, we’re the government, we’re here to make you horribly uncomfortable. Why won’t you answer our questions?’”
“I, ah, overheard them talking the other day. About their plans.” I hoped those plans might be enough for him to act on, even if Peters’s attempt at intimidation was not.
He grimaced. “Badly behaved monkeys, yes. All right, what did they say?”
“Nothing that could be interpreted without a great deal of context, if that reassures you.” Minded of their example, I checked around us: no one was in earshot, nor were there any obvious places for an eavesdropper to hide. “But with context, it sounded like they’re more interested in learning to steal bodies than in finding out who’s already done so.”
“That does not reassure me.”
We reached the sandwich place. A cheerful awning labeled it Jake’s, and the tantalizing scent of fresh-carved meat and pickles seeped through the door. We stood by the window, made no move to enter.
“Mr. Spector,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I’m still worried about what Russia might do with the art, however little my love for the American government. But as you do love them, you can’t want them to claim such a power.”
He put a hand against the cool glass. “And as you still despise them, you can’t want it either.”
Though his own behavior had softened my opinion somewhat, I couldn’t deny the accusation.
At my silence, he asked, “Is it a difficult trick?”
“I don’t know it personally, but I’m told not—merely rare. Miskatonic may make even commonplace books of magic hard to access, but it’s not the only place they’re kept. If your colleagues look for this thing, they’ll eventually find it.” A thought occurred to me, and I added: “But didn’t you say they prefer to develop their own methods, free of ‘ancient superstition’?”
“A principle they follow whenever it’s convenient. Usually they find some minor new twist, and claim it in the name of invention. What they won’t do is ask you why something’s done a certain way, or whether their change looks like a good idea.”
We went into the shop, waited in line with clean-suited boys and laborers on lunch break, women with babies and kids counting dimes.