“Yes. I think so.”
Elizabeth looked back up the side. It was a bizarre sight—the ship’s hull buried in the sand, but not deep enough to keep the great bulk from tipping. The brush around them was mostly sage. Looking closely she saw that the plant lacked detail and looked artificial. There was no smell.
“What’s going on, Elizabeth?”
Wes said.
“We’re off the ship. The landing was pretty hard but we’re not hurt.” Then Elizabeth remembered that she was actually lying on a cot in Wes’s lab. “Were we hurt?”
“Len says you and Anita are fine. Your heart rate is coming down, too.”
“It’s just like they described it, Wes. The ship is in a desert. There’s sagebrush for about a hundred yards but nothing else.”
“See if you can find a name or number on the ship,”
Wes said.
“Wes wants us to see if we can find a name on the ship,” Elizabeth told Anita.
She took Anita’s hand, and they walked along the ship toward the bow. There were no markings of any kind, nothing but flat gray paint everywhere they looked. Finally, they reached the point where the anchor hung—except the anchor was attached to the hull instead of hanging from a chain.
“There are no markings, Wes,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going to see how far I can get from the ship.”
Still holding Anita’s hand, she walked across the desert, which ended about a hundred yards away. She stood there looking at nothing.
“It’s just like the sky,” Anita said.
Elizabeth’s eyes registered a foggy gray, but as she tried to focus on the nothingness her eyes began to hurt, then her head.
“Wes, I’m going to try and walk out of the desert,” Elizabeth said.
“Careful, Elizabeth,”
Wes said.
“It’s just a dream, right?” Elizabeth said. “Wait here, Anita.”
Letting go of Anita’s hand, Elizabeth stepped forward until her toes were right on the edge of the desert. Then she reached forward until her fingertips touched the nothingness. Suddenly her body felt as though it was on fire, and with a deafening buzz and crackle Elizabeth was knocked onto her back.
“Elizabeth, are you hurt?” Anita screamed. Kneeling next to Elizabeth, she took her hand. “Wake up, Elizabeth, wake up.”
Unresponsive to Anita’s pleas, Elizabeth lay unconscious. Then, to the little girl’s horror, Elizabeth became transparent.
“No! Don’t go!” Anita said. “Don’t leave me!”
Elizabeth’s hand melted away, and Anita’s fingers passed through what had been skin. Now all Anita could see was an outline of where Elizabeth had been.
“Don’t leave me alone, Elizabeth! Please don’t leave me!” Anita pleaded.
Then Elizabeth was gone.
Worthington, Ohio
Slurpee in hand, Ralph strode up High Street, headed for home. Ralph had a muscular upper body and long legs, and walked with oversized strides, arms swinging in a simian way. At the sight of his large protruding lips, overhanging brow, and serious look, passersby stepped aside, staring from the corners of their eyes. Ralph wore a Hawaiian shirt with baggy shorts and blue thongs. In his shirt was a pocket protector packed with pens. Ralph had no use for the pens, since he could barely write, but they were
his
pens, given to him by the owners of the shops along High Street.
Ralph turned into the auto parts store, heading directly to the counter in the back.
“Hi Roger, hi Meg,” Ralph said loudly, which was his only way of speaking. “How’s business?”
“Business is fine, Ralph,” Roger said.
“What kind of Slurpee do you have there, Ralph?” Meg asked.
The two customers at the counter looked at the peculiar man, then turned away, pretending not to notice his oddities.
“Lemonade. It’s pretty good. Want I should get you one?”
“It’s too early for me, Ralph,” Meg said.
“Not now, Ralph,” Roger said. “If you come by later, I might.”
“Well okee-dokee then,” Ralph said. “See ya.”
Then Ralph was out the door, loping up the street, long legs pumping effortlessly. The hardware store was next, and Ralph popped in, stopping by the checkout stands.
“Hi Shirley,” Ralph said to the middle-aged woman at the cash register. “How’s business?”
“Slow, Ralph. It will pick up after lunch.”
“Want I should bring you a Slurpee?”
“No thanks, but maybe Gaylord wants one.” Shouting to the rear of the store Shirley said, “Hey Gay, Ralph’s here. You want a Slurpee?”
“Naw!” came Gaylord’s reply. “Maybe an Eskimo Pie when it gets hotter.”
“Well okee-dokee then,” Ralph said, and left.
The routine was repeated all along Ralph’s route; at the barber shop, the paint store, the Chinese restaurant, the beauty salon, and the real estate office. Meeting and greeting was a routine Ralph had used since he was a child and still living with his parents.
Born to older parents who thought they were long past childbearing age, Ralph had been their pride and joy. An easy, cheerful baby, he was the center of their lives, and they loved him all the more knowing they would have precious little time with him. His mother was nearly fifty when he was born, and his father even older. They were traditional parents; Ralph’s mother stayed home with her son, enjoying every minute of parenthood. She found playing with her son, pushing him in the stroller, and later walking hand in hand with him more satisfying than her thirty years as a legal secretary. His father also loved parenting; he played catch with Ralph, took him fishing, and used his carpenter’s skills to build him the best playhouse a boy could imagine. It was a pirate ship-shaped jungle gym, with a sand box and rope net for climbing.
Ralph had been popular with the neighborhood kids, not just because of his special toys or the bottomless cookie jar in his kitchen, but because of his genial personality. Ralph went along to get along, and never held a grudge. A friend who threw sand in his face one day was welcomed back the next. Ralph and his parents couldn’t have been happier, until Ralph started school.
By the end of first grade Ralph was behind his grade level. With a social promotion they pushed him into second grade, where he continued to fall behind. Because he was easy to work with, he was promoted again to the
third grade, but it was clear by the end of that year that he could not keep up with his peers. It was painful for his parents when the school retained him to repeat the third grade, but Ralph took it in stride, climbing onto the bus each morning with a smile on his face and a Daffy Duck lunch box tucked into his backpack. Each day that year he waved goodbye to his mother from the bus window. It was Ralph’s last year in a regular class.
The next year Ralph was assigned to special education and driven to school by his mother. Cheerful to a fault, he accepted his new situation though he was briefly saddened because he missed riding the bus with the other children. Quickly adapting, he was popular with the staff and his classmates, and was often a positive influence on emotionally unstable children.
As early as age five Ralph began walking up and down his block, talking to anyone and everyone. By the time he was ten he was ranging several blocks from home and knew by name most of the residents in his neighborhood. By age twelve he was known far and wide; passersby called to him by name as he came down the street, and business owners greeting him warmly as he visited, often asking Ralph to run errands for them. When he was thirteen his father died, and over the next few years the pirate ship fell into disrepair. The paint peeled from the ship, the rope climbing net frayed and finally broke under Ralph’s weight. Three years later his mother died. With no relatives to take him in, Ralph was made a ward of the state and began moving from foster home to foster home, the only constants his wandering ways, his need to meet and greet people, and his always genial personality.
Ralph was finishing his greeting routine now, checking with Nigel, who was sitting in the booth at the Chevron station taking money from the self-serve customers. Satisfied that Nigel didn’t need anything, he turned on Selby Street, headed for Dr. Birnbaum’s house, which was where he lived.
Ralph walked into an old neighborhood which had been rejuvenated when the third-generation families put money into remodelling. Many of the original single-story homes now were two-story, others had room additions, still others had garages converted into family rooms. Mature trees lined the streets, and in the yards grew closely cropped grass outlined with large shrubs. In new neighborhoods gardening meant planting, seeding, and fencing. Here, gardening was pruning, clipping, and raking.
Ralph greeted everyone he passed on Selby Street with a hearty “hihowyadoin,” stopping to shake hands with people he hadn’t met
before—there were few of those. Ralph knew everyone and everyone knew him.
He spotted the strange car in front of his house a block away, and his legs picked up their rhythm. His “hihowyadoins” were clipped now, and he finished with a quick “I gots to get home. I think we gots company.” Ralph was up his walk and in the door in six strides, pleased to see that they did indeed have visitors.
A man and a woman sat on the couch opposite Dr. Birnbaum, who was in his motorized wheelchair. Severely injured in a traffic accident, Dr. Birnbaum had barely survived, and the accident had exacted a heavy toll on his body. His empty left pant leg was neatly folded and pinned, as was his left sleeve. His face was heavily scarred on the left and the eye on that side hung low, eyelid open over a blind eye. The right eye, however, was animated and bright with intelligence. Ralph walked directly to the visitors, extending his hand.
“Hihowyadoin,” he said. “My name’s Ralph, what’s yours?”
“Nathan Rand,” the man said, standing to take Ralph’s hand.
Ralph pumped the man’s hand vigorously, grinning from ear to ear. Visitors were a treat to Ralph, exciting him more than Christmas mornings.
After a score of hand pumps, Ralph turned to the woman, who took his hand in a limp grip.
“I’m Karla Simon,” she said.
“It’s okay to squeeze tight,” Ralph said. “You won’t hurt me or nothing.”
Ralph felt Karla’s grip tighten, and he pumped her arm.
“Glad to meet ya,” Ralph said. “Want to stay for lunch?”
“Well …” the woman began.
“We can’t,” the man said. “Thanks for the kind offer, though.”
Ralph was still pumping the woman’s hand, and now she tried to pull away. Still grinning and pumping, Ralph finally released her hand, then sat next to her, his hip against hers. She scooted away.
“These are FBI agents, Ralph,” Dr. Birnbaum said. “They were about to tell me what they came to see me about.”
“Well okee-dokee then,” Ralph said.
“Well, we really wanted to talk about Ralph,” the man said, hesitating.
“You can talk in front of him,” Dr. Birnbaum said. “If it’s something he can’t hear, then I don’t want to hear it either.”
Dr. Birnbaum watched the two agents look at each other, and then without a word the decision was made.
“We’ve heard that Ralph has a special ability,” Agent Rand said.
“Where did you hear that?” Dr. Birnbaum asked.
“I don’t know the name of the person, but they work for the Kellum Foundation. I understand they’re funding some of your work.”
“Ralph is special in many ways,” Birnbaum said cautiously. “He’s as gentle as a lamb, as strong as a gorilla, and you’ll never meet anyone with a sweeter temperament.”
Ralph listened with a big smile on his face, the corners of his generous mouth curling up toward his ears, his thick lips thinning.
“Most remarkable of all is his sense of position. Ralph never gets lost. He’s a human homing pigeon. We’ve dropped him off in random parts of the city and he’s found his way home every time. We’ve tried it in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, and Circleville, and every time he turned toward home or any other place we designated. Isn’t that right, Ralph?”
“Yep. I didn’t like that cave, though. It was scary. There were too many dark places.”
“That’s right, he even found his way out of Mammoth Caves. We took him deep into the caves to screen out electromagnetic radiation. We thought he might be using it to orient. It didn’t matter. Ralph picked his way through the cave system to the tourist trails, then followed them out.”
“I got a banana split at the Dairy Queen that time,” Ralph said.
“I can’t imagine why the FBI would be interested in his homing ability,” Dr. Birnbaum said.
Dr. Birnbaum studied their faces, but their steady eyes and neutral smiles revealed nothing.
“Actually, it’s his other ability we’re interested in,” Agent Rand said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Birnbaum lied.
“His resistance to PK,” Rand said. “It’s in Doctor Martin’s reports as well as yours and Ms. Foxworth’s.”
Dr. Birnbaum frowned, then turned to Ralph.
“There’s gum in my dresser, Ralph, why don’t you get yourself some and then watch TV?”
“It’s in your sock drawer. I already found it, but I didn’t take some.”
Ralph stood and turned to the agents.
“You want I should bring you some?”
“No thank you, Ralph,” they said.
“Well okee-dokee then,” he said and loped out of the room.
“No one was to have access to those files,” Dr. Birnbaum said as soon as Ralph was gone.
“We’re the FBI,” Agent Simon said.
“We had permission,” Agent Rand added. “As we understand it, Ralph
was immune to the psychokinetic power of a man calling himself Gil Masters.”
“I knew him as Carl,” Dr. Birnbaum said, surprised at how much they knew. “We never knew who he really was or where he came from.”
“This man could knock holes through walls using nothing but his mind?” Agent Rand continued.
“Yes. He did horrible things. Many people died.”
“Yet Ralph could walk right up to him and Gil couldn’t touch him,” Agent Rand said.
“Yes.”
“Could Ralph be resistant to other psychokinetic powers?” Agent Simon asked.
“What power are you thinking of?” Dr. Birnbaum asked.
“Nothing in particular,” Agent Rand said.
“In your report you suggest that Ralph might be the evolutionary answer to a mutant like this psychic,” Agent Rand said.
“I hypothesized that if psychokinetic power could evolve, then resistance to it could coevolve. Nature always provides a balance. If the tyrannosaur has a fearsome set of jaws, then the herbivores must have armor plate and defensive horns like the triceratops. In response to the lion’s claws and teeth, the gazelle has speed. To control the rabbit population, the fox and the hawk evolved. To control insects there are birds. If the next step in evolution is psychokinesis, then there must be compensating abilities.”
“Seems reasonable,” Agent Rand said. “However, immunity to psychokinesis is a passive defense, like the white fur of the snowshoe rabbit. It’s only effective until the hawk spots the rabbit.”
“I won’t let you take him,” Dr. Birnbaum said suddenly.
Agent Simon raised her eyebrows in surprise. Agent Rand looked bewildered.
“Excuse me?” Agent Rand said.
“The only reason you would need someone with Ralph’s resistance to PK is to stop another psychokinetic like Gil Masters.”
Dr. Birnbaum studied the agents. Agent Simon’s face was pink, but Agent Rand remained emotionally opaque.
“Nothing of the kind,” Agent Rand said “We’re just gathering data for a new training program. The computer is supposed to simulate every conceivable scenario and solution. Using someone with Ralph’s abilities will become a part of one of those scenarios.”