Cold Fire

petulantly.
    “I don't think so. It's lying to us.”
    “Maybe its use of the word 'child' was just another way it was trying to make its alien nature more understandable.”
    YES
    “Bullshit,” Holly said.
    “Damn it, Holly!”
    As Jim removed another page from the tablet, detaching it neatly along its edge, Holly moved to the wall and studied the patterns of light churning through it. Seen close up, they were quite beautiful and strange, not like a smooth-flowing phosphorescent fluid or fiery streams of lava, but like scintillant swarms of fireflies, millions of spangled points not unlike her analogy of luminous, schooling fish.
    Holly half expected the wall in front of her to bulge suddenly. Split open. Give birth to a monstrous form.
    She wanted to step back. Instead she moved closer. Her nose was only an inch from the transmuted stone. Viewed this intimately, the surge and flux and whirl of the millions of bright cells was dizzying. There was no heat from it, but she imagined she could feel the flicker of light and shadow across her face.
    “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?” she asked.
    After a few seconds, Jim spoke from behind her: “No answer.”
    The question seemed innocent enough, and one that they should logically be expected to ask. The entity's unwillingness to answer alerted her that the ringing must be somehow vitally important. Understanding the bells might be the first step toward learning something real and true about this creature.
    “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?”
    Jim reported: “No answer. I don't think you should ask that question again, Holly. It obviously doesn't want to answer, and there's nothing to be gained by aggravating it. This isn't The Enemy, this is—”
    “Yeah, I know. It's The Friend.”
    She remained at the wall and felt herself to be face-to-face with an alien presence, though it had nothing that corresponded to a face. It was focused on her now. It was right there.
    Again she said, “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?”
    Instinctively she knew that her innocent question and her not-so-innocent repetition of it had put her in great danger. Her heart was thudding so loud that she wondered if Jim could hear it. She figured The Friend, with all its powers, could not only hear her hammering heart but see it jumping like a panicked rabbit within the cage of her chest. It knew she was afraid, all right. Hell, it might even be able to read her mind. She had to show it that she would not allow fear to deter her.
    She put one hand on the light-filled stone. If those luminous clouds were not merely a projection of the creature's consciousness, not just an illusion or representation for their benefit, if the thing was, as it claimed, actually alive in the wall, then the stone was now its flesh. Her hand was upon its body.
    Faint vibrations passed across the wall in distinctive, whirling vortexes. That was all she felt. No heat. The fire within the stone was evidently cold.
    “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?”
    “Holly, don't,” Jim said. Worry tainted his voice for the first time. Perhaps he, too, had begun to sense that The Friend was not entirely a friend.
    But she was driven by a suspicion that willpower mattered in this confrontation, and that a demonstration of unflinching will would set a new tone in their relationship with The Friend. She could not have explained why she felt so strongly about it. Just instinct—not a woman's but an ex-reporter's.
    “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?”
    She thought she detected a slight change in the vibrations that tingled across her palm, but she might have imagined it, for they were barely perceptible in the first place. Through her mind flickered an image of the stone cracking open in a jagged mouth and biting off her hand, blood spurting, white bone bristling from the ragged stump of her wrist.
    Though she was shaking uncontrollably, she did not step back or lift her hand off the wall.
    She wondered if The Friend had sent her that horrifying image.
    “Why is your approach marked by the sound of bells?”
    “Holly, for Christ's sake—” Jim broke off, then said, “Wait, an answer's coming.”
    Willpower did matter. But for God's sake, why? Why should an all-powerful alien force from another galaxy be intimidated by her unwavering resolution?
    Jim reported the response: “It says … 'For drama?' ”
    “For drama?” she