Lenny had about the ideal job for someone with bipolar syndrome.  His walks along the river were nice and quiet.  No one he had to talk to.  No inputs. Like a dead computer.  Besides, it was his job to observe, to be available whenever the Holders needed him.  And this morning, he was needed.
        By now he was used to the sudden appearance of the Holders from their dwelling under the river.  He sat and watched the water roil.  In a few minutes, he was surrounded by the short, stocky, immensely muscular aliens.
        Lenny stood and bowed slightly.  “Greetings!  Have you work for me, Sir?”
        The voice of the Witness Holder was flatly abrupt.  “Have.  You were at Capitol?”
        Lenny nodded respectfully.  “Yes, Sir.  What is it you want to know?”
        The alien sat, his heavy legs dangling.  “Not all things.  Sit and we shall begin.”
   
Referring to his notes, the alien began his interrogation.  Twice Lenny had to beg him to slow his speech.  As they went on, Lenny began to understand more quickly and the pace could be increased.
        The creature was insatiable.  “What was the real sense of the address of the President?  What is the world view of the Secretary of External Affairs?  How is the legislation for the new tax on vehicles received by the House?”  And so on.
  
Lenny was used to it now. The aliens were used to conversing at this rapid pace for eighteen or twenty hours at a stretch.  When his Black Beast was in chains, Lenny was able to stay focused, to respond accurately and imaginatively for all those hours.  That was his special talent, this bright, open attentiveness and recall.
        The aliens had collected data from the news media and from the televised coverage of the House and Senate; but Lenny was never asked about what was done or said, only how he perceived the events.  That, too, was his strength, to put abstract impressions into some sort of coherence for the Holders.
        At last it was over.  Lenny sat back, relieved.  Short session this time.  The alien interpreter consulted his notes briefly then handed a packet to Lenny.  In his dull rasp, he added, “Many place next time.  You can do?”
        Lenny shook his head.  “No.  I will be out of my cycle.  I will send another.”
        The alien made his strange, upside-down nod and stood up.  “Fine.  Second day week after?”
  
The Guild Hall was noisy when Lenny stepped up on the low platform.  “Okay folks, let’s settle down.  I’ve learned we have a big one coming along.”  He clicked the remote to bring the first calendar onto the screen.
        “Now, this is a six-week sector that no one has signed onto, up to now.  It’s too early for me to be back in business.  Any takers?”
        A voice from the back said, tentatively, “I think I might be out by then.  If not, my brother will be.  He’s an alternate, but he can do the work.”
        Lenny nodded and filled in the space on his chart.  “Good.  The brothers Karamazov will have the third through the fifth week in March.”
        The reference to the old novel produced a few chuckles.  Lenny went on, filling in odd places on the duty roster.  “Okay, that’s it through June.  Fred?”
        Fred Harrison stepped up to the platform.  “This has to be short.  I have a date under a bridge.”
        Old joke.  More chuckles.  “Now the bad news,” Fred went on.  “These meetings and all the outings and parties have started to bring us into synch.”  He clicked the remote.
    
The chart was stark and threatening.  The superimposed cycles of the members were becoming a steep ess-curve.  There were almost no peaks in the steep valley of the composite cycle.  Fred waited until everyone had absorbed the information.  “So, we are soon going to hit a dry spell.  It might just be when the Holders want to play. Then what?”
        Lenny cleared his throat.  He had been the first bipolar to be used by the aliens, and that had earned him a natural respect from the others.  “I don’t think this is a fluke.  My grandfather, my father, his uncles, my sons, and my grandson all have—the same problem, and we never hit out highs and lows at the same time.  Maybe once or twice. but not often.”
        They weren’t looking at him now.  They were looking down at their folios, at their hands.  “I think we’re just getting tired of taking our medicine!”  He glanced around the hall.  “Ted, when’s the last time you had chelation?”
        Ted didn’t answer.  No one did.  That was the answer.  The medication provided by the aliens had forced cycles that were regular and well-spaced.  But now, without the drugs, they had drifted together as the daylight grew shorter.
  
They were still sitting, mute, waiting.  Lenny sighed.  “So, what will we do?  In a week, or a month, who knows, we’ll need a couple of really good Highs and we won’t have any.  You know what that means?”
        They knew: Back to the forced resetting, with all the horrors of the overdoses and the sudden, crippling kidney failures, and isolation.  One or two inevitable suicides.  But it was the only way the Holders knew how to run things.  Their brains ran at a speed that didn’t allow them to study human behavior directly.  Only bipolars like Lenny could store up impressions at normal speed then download tirelessly at the Holders’ pace.  Other, not “blessed” with Lenny’s illness, simply stalled in the ninth or tenth hour.  The anger of the Holders was not pleasant then. 
  
Lenny sat in the darkness of his room now, preparing himself for the visit of his Beast.  Before he had learned the subtle precursors, the signs that he could separate from normal variations of mood, he had lost his welcome—at home, his wife, many jobs… Now, if the others let him down—his planet.
        When the Holders came, they had almost decided to purge the funny, slow-witted bipeds.  Then Lenny met then, and took an author’s interest in the strange critters.  If he had been controlled…
        No matter.  He had to find some more like him outside the Guild before the need rose again.  But where?
        Or who, rather.  He fired up his gothic computer and yanked up several lists of addresses.  Now, let’s see.  Who wrote what?

         It was many hours before a pattern started to emerge.  Sally the Wick only submitted stuff to Lenny’s little magazine in five, fairly narrow intervals.  Bennie King had a strange cycle: he wrote good fiction in his creative periods, and poetry in between.  Lenny shoved his mouse around.  What sort of poetry?
        It was all there.  By noon of the third day, Lenny had seven bipolars who said they were willing to learn the process if Lenny sat with them.  And, so the planet is saved, Lenny idly thought.
        But, why bother?  Why not let the Holders have it? They’re superior. They have no war or crime.  They do eliminate some species, but only for the good of the Wholeness.  Maybe it would be best all around.  With the genocide in Africa, and the thing in the Balkans, and the mess in Central America, and the slaughter in Taiwan…
        No!  Lenny almost grinned as he saw the sly face of the Beast peering around the corner.  You can have me.  But you can’t have my world!
  
The next session was a lulu.  Bennie came up lame after about fifteen hours of the Holder’s rapid probing. Sally was tougher.  When the Holder said, “That is all.  Next time third day of new month,” she starting asking questions of her own.
        “What’s your home like?  Do you have male and female?  Is it still habitable?  What do you call it?  How long did it take to get here?  How many of you have come?  How many more are coming? When will they be here?”
        The Holder made a face that Lenny knew was a smile.  “I cannot say, small person.  It is not permitted.”
        She persisted, until he started to get taut.  Lenny tried to shut her up.  “Look, if they get mad…”
  
Finally, the Holders were gone and Lenny took Sally for breakfast.  He, too, was curious.  “I thought that severe bipolar depression was almost exclusively a male defect. But you seem to be a—female.”
        She giggled.  “Ooh, you noticed!  And, yes, it is rarer in women.  But, then, I am a rare woman.”  She made a pose.  “Don’t you think so?”
        Lenny finally found the right thing to say.  And then, “I’m sorry, Sal.  I have to go crawl into my cage.”
        She gave him that knowing look.  “Right.  But maybe we could share?”
        “Share?  But…” He stared at her.
        She kissed her finger and tapped it against his lips.  “Later, gator.  You go on now.”
  
Lenny was growing impatient.  “Where is she?”
        Finally he heard Sally pick up.  “Lo?”
        “Sally?  We have a rendezvous tomorrow morning.  Billy Spatz was scheduled, but he got picked off by a bus as he was crossing the street.  He’ll be okay, but off the roster for a while.”
        There was a long silence and Lenny got edgy.  “Hey? Sally?”
        Her voice was almost metallic. Dull at the edges.  “I’ll be there.  Buy me breakfast?”
        “Okay.  Six thirty?  And thanks a lot.  I owe you.”
        “You own me?  Like Hell!”  
        What did she say? What did I say?  Lenny tried to recall his words, her words.  No use.  Still too much ‘black.’  Then it dawned on him and he hastened to explain.  “No, I said ‘owe,’ not ‘own’.”
        Not even a chuckle.  “Okay, pal.  See ya.”
  
When the Holders came, Sally didn’t even rise to greet them.  Lenny tried to get her to stand up.  “They’ll be mad!” he said.
        To his horror, she simply yawned.  And then time ran out. The Holder nodded curtly.  “Greet, Len-nee. Greet Sail-lee!”
        Lenny bowed slightly.  “Good morning, Sir.”
        Sally grunted.
        After staring at her for a moment, the Holder began his questioning.  In a minute, he had asked about five, all about the forthcoming Human Rights Summit in Tegucigalpa.  Then he paused, realizing that Sally was not responding.  “You need time to answer?”
        Sally stood up, slowly and insolently.  “Sorry, Mister Holder, but we’re tired of answering your questions.  From now on, buy the newspapers and figure it out for yourself.”
        The Holder stared at her, mouth open.  At length he found his voice.  “That is insult!   You beings survive on this dreary mud-ball at our indulgence!”
        Sally made a wide, theatrical yawn.  “So, go on.  Nuke us.  I’m tired of life anyway!”
        Lenny tried to explain, to calm the Holder, to shut her up, all at once.  Jee-suss!  I’ve been pretty far down, too, but I never wanted to pull the whole damned world after me.  “Sally, look…”
  
Too late.  The Holders were gone,  black ripples the only evidence they had been there.  Lenny plopped himself down.  “My God, gal! What have you done?”
        She smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek.  “Don’t worry.  They were bluffing. There’s only six of them, and they are afraid if we find out they have no real power, we’ll kill them or put ‘em in a zoo.”
        Lenny was still staring at the place where the Holders had gone into the river.  “How’d you come to that conclusion?”
        “Simple, Len.  I’m pretty good at getting impressions from people’s voices and body language.”
        “And what did they tell you?”
        “They said they were…”  She glanced up, over Lenny’s shoulder.  “See? There they go!”
  
The space ship, the Scourge of the Universe, rose smoothly, dripping slime and old food wrappers.  And in a moment it was gone. 
 
 
                         About The Author
  
        Loring Emery is a retired physicist with five U.S. patents to his credit.  He has had more than 300 stories published in the small press and together with his cousin, Penny Towne, edited and published three small circulation magazines:  FAYRDAW, la Pierna Tierna, and UpDare.  He’s also found time to do work on an encyclopedia for Salem Press and write a column on writing for Calliope. 
        He lives in Albuquerque, NM where he serves as a mentor for budding writers in the area.
    
    
                                        Copyright © Loring Emery