Nobody seemed to be listening. By day’s end, the Dow Jones was down another 240 points and still looking for a floor.
Larry King Live. Guest: Dr. Edward Bannerman of the Institute for Advanced Study.
King: Dr. Bannerman, you’ve been quoted as saying that the big news is the so-called galaxy world. Why is that?
Bannerman: (Laughs) Larry, this is all pretty big news. But the possibility that the chamber in which Arky Redfern died is actually located off-world is a monumental development in a series of incredible events.
King: Why?
Bannerman: I’m talking in practical terms now.
King: Okay.
Bannerman: The people fell down in that room. The reports indicate that the galaxy has not changed its position in the window. Therefore the facility, whatever it is, is not rotating. Or if it is, it is doing so very slowly. Now, that’s important because it implies that if the site is not located on a planetary surface, it incorporates artificial gravity.
King: I can see why that might have some importance. But—
Bannerman: Larry, if we can create artificial gravity, we can probably reduce, or even eliminate, gravity’s effects. I’m talking about antigravity. Think what it would mean to the average householder, for example. Want to move that sofa? Slap an antigravity disk on it and float it into the next room.
Horace Gibson had started life as an insurance salesman. Bored, he’d joined the Marines, risen to command a battalion, and won a Silver Star in the Gulf and the Medal of Honor in Johannesburg. His units had collected enough citations to paper his den. In 1996 he’d retired, tried another civilian occupation, real estate this time, and lasted almost a year. On the anniversary of his retirement from the Corps, he joined the U.S. Marshals Service.
Within two years he had become commander of the Special Operations Group (SOG). SOG was the marshals’ SWAT team, based in Pineville, Louisiana.
Horace was liked by his people. He was willing to take on upper management when occasion required, and he did not spare himself in ensuring that operations were carried out for maximum success with least risk.
He was twice divorced. His life had been too mobile and too erratic for either of his ex-wives. He had two sons, both of whom (with some justification) blamed Horace for the domestic failures, and whose relationships with their father were cool. Horace had found nothing to replace the wreckage of his personal life, and consequently he worked too many hours. His boss, Carl Rossini, liked to joke that Horace needed a woman in his life. He did, and he knew it.
Meantime, Horace took his entertainments where he could find them. These were growing fewer with the passing years, a result of his own aging and the narrowing of his taste. But there were occasional delights, one of which took the form of Emily Passenger, a gorgeous young woman he’d met at a fund-raiser for the Pineville library. They’d gone to dinner several times, seen a couple of shows, and had taken to jogging together. He had noted some reluctance on her part, however, toward pursuing a relationship, and he ascribed it to his track record. She did not want to become a third casualty.
Consequently Horace had embarked on a campaign to demonstrate that he was now both mature and thoroughly domesticated. The first step was to invite her for dinner at his place, and when she agreed, he had enthusiastically set about preparing the evening. He got in a couple of T-bones and an expensive bottle of champagne, invested in a kerosene lamp, which would help provide an offbeat atmosphere, and spent the day cleaning up. That evening, twenty minutes after he’d opened the champagne, his phone rang.
28
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness…
A thin, bearded man gazed out over the Pacific from his home at Laguna Beach. A freighter moved beneath a cloud-streaked sky. The sea was flat and calm.
There was an air of uncertainty in his bearing, and an observer would have had a difficult time deciding where his attention was directed. He held a glass of Mondavi chardonnay in his right hand.
The town, like the harbor, lay spread out before him. Traffic moved steadily along the coastal highway. He glanced at his watch, as he had been doing every few minutes for the past hour.
The phone rang.
He turned away from the window and sat down at his desk. “Hello?”
“Greg. It’s all set.”
It was almost two in Fargo. “Okay. Do they know we’re coming?”
“Not yet. Listen. How much influence do you have with the feds?”
“Not much.”
“Ditto.”
The man in Laguna Beach was looking at his plane tickets. “Have faith, Walter. See you in a few hours.”
SIX DEAD, HUNDREDS INJURED, IN AEROSPACE LOCKOUT
Seattle, Apr. 4 (AP)—
Labor tensions erupted into full-scale rioting today at three major aerospace firms when management locked out workers seeking to return to their jobs after a wildcat strike. The violence was a continuation of unrest since simultaneous announcements of “corporate reengineering” last week led to widespread fear of massive job eliminations.
DOES FORT MOXIE HAVE A VISITOR?
There have been reports from several sources that something from another world came through the port atop Johnson’s Ridge and is now loose in the Fort Moxie area. There are stories of voices in the wind, of child abductions, of storms that seem to target individuals. And there has been a death under mysterious, and one might even say ominous, circumstances.
Last week Jack McGuigan abandoned his snowmobile in the woods off Route 32, in Cavalier County, and ran out onto the highway, where he was struck by a moving van. The driver of the van said that McGuigan appeared to be fleeing from someone. Or something.
Cavalier County police have been inundated with sightings, and recent visitors to the area report that for the first time in memory, people are locking their doors.
Meantime, still wilder stories are getting started. Old-Time Bill Addison, who has ridden a number of celestial horses during his career, is warning that we have broken into the Garden of Eden and released an avenging angel. Or maybe a devil. The Reverend Addison is unclear on the details.
It seems that, with the unearthing of the Roundhouse, we are doomed to relive another of those popular delusions that revisit us periodically. We don’t yet know the facts in the death of Mr. McGuigan. But a probable scenario is not hard to reconstruct: He was hunting out of season; he thought he might be discovered; he became disoriented; and he stumbled onto a highway. Incidents like that happen every day. The voices around Fort Moxie can undoubtedly be ascribed to the active imaginations of the tourists, encouraged, perhaps, by some of the locals, who know a good thing when they see it. It all makes interesting reading, but we recommend keeping our feet on the ground. In the end, the facts will turn out to be suitably prosaic. (Editorial, Fargo Forum, April 4)
Pete Pappadopolou had worked in the shipping room of ABC Pistons, Inc., for four years, and had recently risen to his first supervisory position. His marriage had collapsed six months earlier, when his wife ran off with the operator of a beer distributorship, leaving him to care for their asthmatic son.
Pete had worked a second job, delivering Chinese food, to pay for the nurse and associated medical care. He hadn’t been sleeping well. He was depressed, and his life seemed to be going nowhere. He missed his wife, and his doctor put him on tranquilizers. But the promotion came, bringing a sizable salary increase and the promise of more as ABC expanded into allied fields. Moreover, the child’s attacks had begun to lessen in both frequency and intensity. They had turned a corner.