Far-out Show (9781465735829) (5 page)

“You are here and you have no easy way home
for now so what is the point except to do what you can for the sake
of fame and fortune?”

“Fame and fortune. You are programmed to know
the way to motivate my heart each time, Wilburps.”

“I have my role to play in things.”

Penelope Regimentator was seldom a happy
person and at this moment she was far from that state of mind as
she drove along the urban streets as fast as she dared. She wasn’t
a big respecter of speed limits but right now it was the need to
carefully scrutinize the moving traffic on each cross street as she
reached it that was slowing her up.

She had stayed out of their sight when
Krinkle had driven off and when someone hurried to the rental van
that had been parked right behind him and followed close behind
him. She couldn’t be certain that wasn’t another ally of weird
George so she stayed down until that vehicle was up the street too.
Then she ran to her car, turned on the tracking device signal
detector, and began a high tech version of the game of following
without being noticed.

“I’m betting that the really weird outfit
he’s wearing today means he has a lead and is off to meet the
Martians or whoever they are. Those pictures’ll be worth a lot of
trouble. He owes me for me being so patient waiting for him to
unwillingly give me a real cash payoff.”

It only took her two blocks of holding the
detector out her car window to get the hang of interpreting the
beep
s to mean that the tracker was straight ahead. When it
turned off this street the confusion began.

First the
beep
s got weaker. Then they
got weaker than that. Her first impulse was to bang the detector
against the dashboard to make it work right since that is what she
routinely did with flashlights before she tossed them as defective.
It was a crime the way the companies got away with selling such
flimsy merchandise. At the same time she stepped on the gas so she
could fall back on following her quarry by keeping his car in
sight. That brought her to the intersection and the signals back to
full strength. She wasn’t a pretty face to have that be her major
asset but she got the message that when the signal weakened she
needed to turn the detector from side to side to find which
direction it was strongest – and turn the car that way. At the next
intersection of course. She didn’t fully make the mistake of
turning too soon, only started to.

As she passed a car rental agency she turned
as much as she could in her seat to face it since that was the
direction that kept the tracker signal strong. Fortunately she
slowed as she did that so there was no crunching of metal, only a
shout, blare of a car horn, and a waving of hands as a driver
turning from the cross street at the corner protested Reggie’s
failure to give him right of way even though he had the green
light. She replied to his anger with a gesture that conveyed her
feelings about him, then she threw an illegal U-turn and started
back the way she had just come so that driver was now ahead of her.
Taking no chances, he sped up and had his passenger get on a cell
phone to call for the police in case this got nasty.

She ignored him though. She stopped at the
curb across from the car rental agency and swept the detector back
and forth. Yes, definitely the signal was coming from in there.

She jumped out and ran across the street,
defying the one car moving in the area to dare even to get close
enough to hit her.

From the sidewalk outside the metal-mesh
fence she could see the van that had been parked behind Krinkle’s
car in a spot waiting for its next renter. The signal from the
tracking device wasn’t coming from the van though. She swept the
detector about and followed the strongest signal – to the trash
container where the tape-covered whatever-it-was had been tossed by
the agency car-cleanup person. She retrieved that since she might
have other uses for it - and shoved over the trash can to vent some
of her annoyance that somehow Krinkle had tricked her into
following a decoy while he got away. She would never concede he was
a worthy opponent but this was clever.

That was when she began her
as-hurried-as-she-dared-to-go-without-being-almost-certain-to-miss-him
patrol of the streets to spot Krinkle and get back on track
stalking him. She was unhappy, reckless, but focused. In that state
fortunately she refused to consider how unlikely it was that she
would stumble across him by just driving around with no idea where
he was headed. If she had come to that conclusion it’s likely that
there would have been damage inflicted on a variety of inanimate
objects and maybe even an unfortunate person or two who dared to
get close to her.

* * *

Krinkle and Jones sat in the car parked on a
major urban street. They were focused on the handheld portable TV
set into which Jones inserted batteries.

“Such a small screen,” Krinkle commented, not
intending that to be taken as a compliment.

“I can't carry my nineteen-incher in my
pocket so this has to do. It gets all the stations though,” Jones
assured him.

“My Fodd may be picking up an alien aura but
without a known sample to test it against I can't be certain yet.
It pays to stay on top of the news though. I say ‘Don't drink and
drive’ as well as ‘Don’t try to pay close attention to the news
while driving’. That makes safety sense to me.”

Jones turned on the set and news reporter
Beth Regards appeared on the screen, speaking to the studio camera.
“As we reported earlier, a local amateur's claim to have seen and
photographed an object staying in place beside the moon was laughed
at by many people but professional astronomers around the world are
now saying he is correct and they have their own photos to prove
it. The local man couldn’t be reached for comment but we're sure he
is justifiably proud of himself. Coming up next, the latest on the
price of lettuce this week.”

“That's me she's talking about. I'm the proud
amateur,” Krinkle said, in case his assistant had any doubts about
it.

“Why can't they contact you?”

“I don't have a cell phone. That way the
government can't track me with its GPS and try to interfere before
I'm ready to call them in. They'd love to learn the secrets of my
Fodd and my jammer without paying me or giving me proper
credit.”

“At least you got credit in that report,”
Jones noted.

“Did you hear my name mentioned? They know
who I am but some of them were the ones who laughed loudest when I
filed my report so they can't follow up that angle.”

“So when you find aliens they'll crap
themselves.”

“The invaders and my detractors will all do
so. It won't be gold bricks either. Okay, let me check the Fodd to
see what direction we should head in.” He turned to look at the
carton on the back seat.

At that moment Regimentator drove by,
unnoticed by the men.

She was paying attention mostly to the moving
traffic and now watching warily for the police since she had
attracted the attention of two foot patrol officers at different
spots as she passed them at more than the posted or common sense
speed and with warning honks of her horn at pedestrians daring to
consider exercising their right-of-way to traverse cross-walks in
her path which would require her to slow down.

Glancing over she recognized Krinkle and his
car. She turned for a better look, this time without taking the
precaution of braking. She confirmed her sighting of her quarry –
and came within inches of hitting a car legitimately turning off
the cross street with the traffic light to proceed down the street
ahead of her. Fortunately that lady driver was paying attention and
driving defensively. She stopped in time and laid on her horn which
got Regimentator’s attention in the nick of time so she could
swerve the small amount needed to just barely avoid vehicular
contact. The other driver sagged in shock and relief; Reggie drove
on as if nothing had almost happened.

At the next cross street she turned the car
to loop around and come back to where she could watch Krinkle and
follow him when and if he drove on. She was back in the game and as
long as she avoided any police who might have been called to
investigate an alleged careless driving incident, she was in good
shape.

Matt Taylor, a thirty-one year old geek
wearing the latest
In
style of fancy jeans with an out of
style long-sleeved plaid shirt, sat paging through a newspaper on
the bench that faced the street by the small park on Oakline
Street. Always over-eager for social contact, he immediately noted
Nerber as the Ormelexian walked up and stopped a distance away but
Taylor restrained himself for a minute.

Nerber whispered, “This one seems alert and
attentive so I will make you less worthy of noticing.” He touched a
sequence of the spots on the zerpy and its outer appearance changed
to that of rough cloth.

Nerber stepped back in surprise and momentary
fear when, his self-imposed minute of restraint up, Taylor jumped
up and hurried over to greet him and shake his hand. “Hi! How ya
doin'? I'm Matt. Short for Matthew but that's formal and I'm a
pretty loosey kinda guy.”

Nerber didn’t know what Taylor's out-thrust
hand meant so he didn’t reach for it and his wariness of it showed.
Taylor then got self-conscious about making the unrequited gesture
and put his hand behind his back to get it out of sight. That move
in turn made Nerber even more nervous about what it was doing.

“Nice day. Not a cumulus in sight, right?”
Taylor said.

Not a clue, cumulus is not in our
translated data base
.

Nerber sat on the bench and put his
“backpack” beside him so it faced Taylor when the young man happily
sat back down. Wilburps silently hovered there an inch above the
bench seat but Taylor, always eager for someone to talk to, didn’t
notice that.

“New here? I haven't seen you around before.
Uh look, if I'm too chatty I'm sorry, I'm only trying to be
socio-positive - if that's a word.” Taylor laughed nervously. “I
like your hat. And the ornament thing on it. Like you’re right from
the Outback. Are you from Down Under with the roos and the
kinjajous? No, wait, I don’t think kinjajous are from there. Sorry,
I’m running on. My mom says I do that a lot. She thinks if I had
some real friends I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know if it would
change that but I’m all for having friends that I talk to more than
one time.”

I cannot begin to sort that out so fast.
Find something else to talk-talk about since this topic does not
seem critical
.

“What is it that you are having for your
usage? A thing we might chin strap about, yes?”

Taylor hesitated as he tried to make sense of
that. “Chin strap? Like... No, that doesn't make sense. Huh?”

“Updating. Is that an item we might
chit-chat
about? That is okay, no?”

Taylor smiled uncertainly but then thought
about the item in question. He held up the newspaper with a big
grin and offered it to Nerber. “Oh, this! It's today's newspaper.
Hot off the press.”

Nerber was reaching for it but quickly pulled
back his hand. “It could hurt my hand with hotness?”

“Huh? Oh, no, it's not hot to the touch, that
only means... Heck, it's safe and has the very latest news as of
when they inked this edition to get it on the street. Did you hear
about the space people who have maybe landed?”

“There is disclosure about such a thing in
your new paper thing?” Nerber was eager to hear what these beings
knew of his current venture but afraid they might know too much and
he would be in grave danger without knowing it for certain until
now.

Taylor considered explaining that but brushed
that idea aside with a gesture. “It's the story of the hour but
don't believe it. It's just to sell more newspapers and air
time.”

Nerber looked to see what was brushed away
even as he said, “Please to tell me how you sell the air to one
another for some time. This much interests me.”

Taylor considered what that might mean but
opted to go another way. He opened the paper, handed it to Nerber,
and pointed to a photo on an inner page. He said proudly, “This is
the new rec center. I've been in there. It's nice.”

Nerber has never encountered paper before so
he felt it, smelled it, and held it to his ear and rubbed the pages
together. He considered tasting it but decided to refrain from
that. When he noted ink on his fingers he became alarmed and
dropped the paper onto the bench.

Seeing that distress Taylor reached over and,
since Nerber was too startled to resist, took the alien’s hand -
and rubbed it on his own long shirt sleeve. “The ink comes off like
that a lot. Not a problem. There, all gone.”

Taylor reached for Nerber's other hand but
Nerber gestured that he could do this - and rubbed it on Taylor's
shirt himself.

Taylor pulled out a pack of facial tissues.
“You touched some onto your face. I'll get it off. Uh, tongue
please.”

We have nothing about such a ritual. It
seems non-threatening but I have no recommendation about its
safety
.

Noting Nerber's clear hesitation about this
procedure Taylor sat back, holding up his hands to show he was
harmless. “Sorry, my mistake. I forgot myself. We've only just met
and all. So, what high school did you go to?”

“An altitude education facility? I am not
local so no names would be ringing your belfry I betcha. Is that
good? I am picnicking my way through a new way of talk-talk and may
speak out of turning but be pleased to know I am with full
respecting of everyone.”

Taylor stared at him as he tried to make
enough sense of that to decide what response if any was
appropriate. He was also confused that the voice seemed to come
from the backpack and the stranger’s lip movements didn’t seem like
they could be more than a very rough approximation of the words he
was hearing from this person.