The Journey Begins (7.2)

Rivi opened her black, triangular palmtop computer. Through her amalgamator's link, she instructed the computer to call the computer address belonging to the woman who called her while she and Dan were landing the ship.

"Good morning, ma'am. I don't believe I know your name," Rivi replied, as the woman appeared on the screen.

"My name is Mrs. Larson. I am the President's Secretary."

"Oh, please tell him thank you for telling me there was a certain person I should meet while I was on Mars. He'll know what I mean," Rivi replied.

"You can tell him yourself, Miss Rivinaig. He feels that it would be best for your safety if you came to the White House. The President believes that you may soon be tracked down by the local news reporters. It would be best for you to come here and speak to the many different news stations at the same time, instead of individually."

"That would certainly be more efficient, but what do they wish to speak to me about?" Rivi asked.

"They're going to want to ask you questions. You've just come from another planet. You can see why they would be excited."

"I see. Yes, ma'am, I will come," Rivi said in understanding.

"Shall I send someone to pick you up?"

"No, ma'am. I just need to know where I should land," Rivi said.

The woman leaned back to ask someone a question. When she faced the screen again, she had an answer.

"We'll be ready for you on the White House lawn. When should we expect you?"

"Less than five minutes," Rivi said.

She shut off the link and closed her computer. Bringing her cube out of the sphere around her neck, Rivi once again prepared for space travel. This time she would not need to travel hyper- dimensionally.

Earth stood teetering on the edge of its future. Rivi took flight. Destination: White House, Washington, D.C.

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Rivi looked at her computer screen at the lush, green White House lawn below her. In the short amount of time she gave them to prepare, Rivi was amazed at how quickly they had found a welcoming committee. Rivi groaned. Part of her disliked all of this attention. The rest of her argued that it was necessary in order to move Earth toward a more progressive future. When she agreed to come to Earth, she didn't realize she would be expected to be an ambassador and show them there really is more life out there, but someone had to do it.

Seeing that they had obviously set a landing site for her, she decided to land a few inches away from the end of the red carpet that had been laid across the grass. About a dozen reporters stood along the edge, already snapping pictures.

Good grief, Rivi thought. Do reporters always camp out around the White House in hopes of getting the 'big story'? I wonder if I should make the colors on my ship change rapidly. They might like that, Rivi thought with a grin. Nah, let's not make them any more excited than they are. They might give themselves heart attacks.

Rivi smiled and shook her head. Her smooth landing elicited even more enthusiastic picture-taking. Rivi unplugged her computer and then, taking a deep breath, she walked through the side of the ship where she hoped the carpet started. She shielded her eyes with her hand against the glare of all the camera flashes that greeted her. She turned, stepping to the side for the benefit of the photographers as she changed the ship back into a cube. She shrank the cube, picked it up off the grass, and pushed it through the seemingly solid walls of the sphere on her necklace. As she turned back around, she saw the President walking smartly down the center of the carpet toward her.

The photographers turned to snap pictures of the President coming up the carpet. Rivi smiled as he shook her hand and led her inside the White House followed by his team of security men. He led her to the Oval Office, where he invited her to sit on one of the two leather couches parallel to each other in the center of the room.

"Most of my guests wait until my men get out there to ward off the press before they step foot outside their planes," President Malcarosi said, grinning, as he sat on the couch opposite her.

Rivi looked to see the security men (glasses still on) standing in fixed positions around the room.

"Most of your guests are well-known and also don't need to collapse their ships into tiny cubes," Rivi answered with an equally amused-looking grin.

"Perhaps we should design a new protocol for accommodating intergalactic guests," President Malcarosi joked.

"Well, it was fun anyway. What do we do now?" Rivi laughed.

"We could watch the news," said another man entering the room.

He held out his hand, and Rivi stood to shake it.

"I am Vice President Trint."

"My name is Rivinaig,"

"Our interstellar guest," he replied with a grin.

"This is my evil shadow," the President replied, referring to the Vice President.

President Malcarosi sent Rivi a mischievous grin.

Rivi looked back and forth between the President and the Vice President as they both broke out in laughter. Rivi looked toward the television across the room.

"You said that you wanted to watch the news?" President Malcarosi asked as they stopped laughing.

The Vice President nodded and went to turn the television on. Rivi blinked her eyes, and the television turned on and began flipping through the channels.

"Which newscast did you wish to watch? CBS, NBC, FOX?" Rivi asked, naming a few.

The Vice President gaped at the television screen, which continued flicking through channels.

"I don't think I believed you before," he said to the President, who suddenly smiled as if he'd just won an argument.

"How about NBC, Rivi?" the President asked, as Rivi flipped to the proper channel and the three of them settled in to watch.

"Moments ago, our reporter was fortunate enough to be on the scene at the White House when a strange visitor landed on the White House lawn. What did you see, Jack?" the anchor asked, as the television switched to a man still out on the lawn.

"Well, Kate, we were told that an intergalactic visitor was going to land here on the White House lawn. Naturally, we were skeptical, but here you have it, Kate—" The television switched to Rivi landing and putting away her ship.

"The visitor's ship landed and the 'being' disembarked. The visitor is obviously female and seems to be only a child. I've just received word that the President will be addressing the nation on this matter in an hour. However, here's where things start to get even more interesting," the man said, as they showed the footage again from about halfway through the whole scenario. "She turns around and the ship changes into a cube. The cube then shrinks, and she picks it up and pushes it through the sphere hanging on her necklace."

The news channel showed a close-up image of Rivi putting the cube through the seemingly solid walls of her sphere.

"Thank you, Jack. We'll keep you up-to-date, folks, as this interesting scenario unfolds."

The Vice President got up and shut the television off.

"Well! For the first time in media history, they didn't speculate or over-exaggerate anything," President Malcarosi said, mildly surprised.

"Perhaps because this whole thing is just too amazing for them. They can't figure out how to speculate about it, much less over-exaggerate!" the Vice President said laughing, as he sat on the corner of the large desk that dominated the Oval Office.

"We are going to need a press conference," President Malcarosi stated.

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