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The Magic Man did not move.

“So, first they’re yelling at the
Magic Man, because he’s not moving,” she said. “Then they’re yelling at you,
because you are moving.”

“I tried to grab his jacket, you
know?” said Philippe, feeling a sudden compulsion to explain. “But it was
attached to him, it was all one piece, and slippery, so I couldn’t get a hold
of it.”

“Here’s the bad guy,” said Shanti.

A Cyclops came out from the
entryway, running. It spotted the Magic Man and Philippe, and almost
offhandedly flung out its top left hand. A bolt of what certainly looked like
lightning came out from the hand, passing through the cloud that had formerly
been the Magic Man and striking Philippe, throwing him out of the scene. There
were two small flashes from the hands of Sucre and Mo. The Cyclops’ body began
to shudder as the scramblers went to work inside him. He ran out of the frame.

“Now, I want to show you something,
in slow-mo,” said Shanti. “Watch the Magic Man.”

She adjusted the screen controls so
that the scene froze as the bolt was emerging from the hand of the Cyclops,
then centered it on the Magic Man. The scene went forward in slow motion.

Philippe watched, perplexed.

“He blew up first,” he said.

“Yeah, he saw it and went,
ptew
.
I think that’s how he gets out of the way. Now watch this.”

She touched scroll’s control panel,
and the infirmary Philippe was sitting in now appeared. Philippe was lying in
bed, eyes closed. His body was limp. “Watch the chair,” Shanti said, expanding
that part of the shot.

It was a marvelous party.

The great hall shone beneath its
massive chandeliers. Waiters poured wine and whisked about plates featuring
scrumptious food—puff pastries bursting with real butter, sweet pieces of
sashimi, tender and rich slices of steak, bits of duck that positively melted
away in the mouth.

There was an orchestra playing
and some were dancing, but most people were too caught up in lively
conversation to be enticed onto the parquet floor. Everyone looked fabulous,
well-dressed and rested, groomed and young. Everyone was laughing.

Philippe stopped a waiter and
got a piece of cheese. It didn’t look like much, but when he bit into it—oh, my
God. Cheddar, really excellent cheddar, had such an amazing flavor, rich and
deep. It was one of his favorites.

He looked up. Standing before
him, looking elegant in an eggplant dress suit, was George. He was talking to an
attractive woman in a dark red halter dress. Her dark hair was streaked with
gray.

“
Hi, George!” said Philippe.

“
Philippe!” said the doctor. “I
thought I might find you here.”

“
Hi, Philippe,” said the woman.

“
Yoli!” said Philippe,
recognizing her. “I’m so happy to see you guys! When did you get into Ottawa?”

“
Just now,” said George. “We
came for the party.”

“
I need to speak to you.” A
voice came from behind Philippe.

He turned around. There was a
Host, glowing with golden light.

“
Hello there!” said Philippe. He
turned back to George, delighted. “You brought an alien!”

“
Of course!” said George.

“
I’ve never met an alien
before,” said Yoli.

“
He’s a little unusual—most of
his kind are red, not gold,” said Philippe. “And they usually don’t glow like
this.”

“
I think he put it on for the
occasion,” George replied.

They all admired the Host’s
beautiful glow.

“
Philippe, it’s really important
that we talk,” the Host said. “What do you know about physics?”

“
Nothing!” exclaimed Philippe, as
the doctor and Yoli laughed.

“
That’s her department,” said
George, pointing at Yoli, who playfully grabbed his hand.

“
Speak with her,” said Philippe.

“
She’s gone,” said the Host.

And sure enough, Yoli and George
had vanished.

“
Oh, this is a party!” said
Philippe. “She probably doesn’t want to talk physics now—it would be a busman’s
holiday.”

“
What do you know about energy?”
the alien asked.

“
I wish I had more of it!”
Philippe exclaimed.

“
I am talking about physical
energy. The energy that powers these lights, for example.”

“
Not much,” said Philippe. “It
can shock you. And there’s the right-hand rule.”

“
What is the right-hand rule?”

“
If you are in a predominantly
Muslim country, always use your right hand—using the left is insulting.”
Philippe laughed, but the Host was clearly not amused. “Diplomatic humor. I’m
sorry.”

A waiter came up with a tray of
ice wine, and Philippe took a glass. “Would you like some?” he asked the Host.
“It’s strong, but delicious.”

“
I’m not here to eat,” said the
Host.

“
You must eat—this food is
excellent! Look!” said Philippe, pointing to his left. “There’s a hand
sanitizer.”

“
What is that?” said the Host,
looking at the double-basined machine.

Philippe gaped at him.

“
He’s not really a Host,” said
George, again at Philippe’s side.

“
No, he’s not,” said Philippe.

“
I never said I was the host,”
said the Host.

“
You’re having a dream,” said
George.

“
It’s a nice dream,” Philippe
replied.

“
Absolutely—I’m having a great
time, and so is everybody else,” said George. “I’d keep on dreaming it if I
were you.”

“
Oooh, look, an alien!” A very
tall, somewhat overweight black woman with long hair pinned up in an elaborate
bun flounced up in a ruffled aqua dress.

“
Kali!” said Philippe. “I mean,
Kelly!”

“
Hi, Philippe,” she said, with
just a hint of brittleness in her smile. “Is this your alien friend?”

“
Yes, isn’t he excellent?” said
Philippe. “They’re so cute. And they can purr like cats!”

“
Oh, will you purr for me?”
Kelly asked.

The Host stared at them for a
moment. “If you want,” he said, and began making the thrumming noise.

“
That’s so cute!” said Kelly,
jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “You purr when you’re happy—just
like a cat.”

“
We don’t purr when we’re
happy,” said the irritated Host. “We purr when we want others to be happy. Fathers
do it to soothe their children. It’s inherently manipulative.”

“
He’s so adorable!” said Kelly.

“
Could you please get rid of
this woman?” asked the Host.

“
Shhh!” said Philippe, afraid
that Kelly would be offended. But she was already gone, and Philippe spotted
her waltzing out of earshot with an Australian diplomat he had worked with
almost a decade ago.

“
I don’t like her, either,” said
George. “She looks like a liar. You could tell she didn’t like being called
Kali.”

“
It’s not that I don’t like her,”
said the Host. “It’s that we need to talk. Philippe, I am real.”

“
Of course you’re real!” said
Philippe. “Aliens are real! Everyone knows that!”

“
I, in particular, am real,”
said the Host.

Philippe and George looked at
each other and smiled.

“
If you’re so real, why do you
speak English?” asked the doctor.

“You
are not real,” said the
Host to the doctor. “Philippe, I speak English because I am in your mind, and I
am limited to what is in your mind.”

“
Exactly,” said the doctor.

“
Wait, wait, shhh. Stop for a
minute.” Philippe hushed them as the music stopped. A ripple of anticipation
went through the crowd.

“
It’s time,” George said,
excited.

The music began again as the
ceiling dissolved into the night sky. Everyone started to talk and laugh again,
the gaiety growing and growing. They turned to Philippe. “Start it!” someone
exclaimed. Someone else shouted, “We can’t do it without you!”

Philippe threw his head back and
started to laugh. His body rose up off the ground, slowly moving higher.
Everyone else laughed, too, and they too floated up into the air. They laughed
and flew, they soared and rolled, all because Philippe let them. He had the
power, and they were all so, so happy.

“
Philippe!”

Philippe looked down, and the
Host was still standing on the floor. “You have to laugh,” said Philippe. “I
can make it happen, but you can’t fly if you don’t laugh.”

“
I don’t want to fly. I need to
talk to you.”

“
You have to laugh,” said
Philippe, reaching out and making a tickling motion with his right hand.

The alien began to laugh. It was
not a natural noise. It sounded more like a barking cough.

“
Hek, hek, hek,” the alien said,
and his body began to rise into the air.

Philippe was still in the infirmary the next day, but he had
slept well and was feeling relatively good. He wasn’t feeling quite as good as
the SFers, though—they were feeling fine to the point of giddiness. Philippe
didn’t know if they were in such high spirits because he had survived the
attack, because they finally seen some action, or because the worst had
happened and they had not been forced to seal themselves off from the station
and blast themselves into space after all.

In any case, people kept sticking
their heads in to say hello, and Five-Eighths, bored while on guard duty at the
no man’s zone, sang Philippe a merry song over his earplant extolling the joys
of sibling incest. Whether the song was of Five-Eighths’ own invention or
traditional among the SF was unclear because he had apparently not taken into
account his proximity to Shanti’s office, so the song ended abruptly and with
some violence.

Philippe spoke with Shanti and
George about how the aliens were responding to the attack. They were apparently
quite concerned—the soldiers were practically mobbed whenever they went outside
by aliens who wanted to express their sympathy and to know how the human
diplomat was doing. Many of the aliens said they had also spoken to the Magic
Man, “but apparently they can’t understand the freaky fucker either, so that’s
not helping much,” said Shanti.

“All right,” said Philippe. “Are
you OK with letting some of the aliens in to visit me here?”

Shanti thought for a minute. “Small
groups, like one or two? That would be OK. But we can’t let everyone in.”

They discussed it and agreed on
three visits—Max and Moritz, a Swimmer drone that could broadcast Philippe’s
comments to the rest of the station, and a small delegation from the Cyclopes.
That last group caused Shanti the most concern, but Philippe argued that since
the Cyclopes had officially condemned the attack, it was crucial to demonstrate
that there were no hard feelings.

“I have to meet them, and I have to
meet them first,” he said.

Shanti thought for a moment. “I’m
gonna need some time to get ready for the party, but I’ll send out the invites
as soon as I can,” she said, and left.

“What does that mean?” Philippe
asked the doctor.

“Oh, you know, she’s going to put
up streamers, bake a cake. Maybe some balloons,” he replied with a smile.