He shook his head. Having achieved the dream of every UFO chaser the world around, he had no idea what to do next. The police were out. They wouldn’t believe him. His UFO-chasing buddies were also out. While he used them as sources of information (all of which he took with liberal amounts of salt), he wasn’t sure what they’d do with a real, honest-to-God alien. He realized he was afraid to find out.
Yet, the aliens would not be here forever. When their vessel was repaired, they would be gone, and he would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. His options seemed to have dwindled to one. He moved to his computer, opened his e-mail exchange and carefully composed a message.
Stan Schell was writing up a storm. Whatever else this experience provided, he knew it would end up on the shelves of bookstores everywhere. Better still, it would leave the stores and find its way into homes nationwide. He had no doubt some people would actually read it. Since his face had appeared in newspapers countrywide and on TV screens, Stan’s modest sales had become decidedly immodest. His book covers were being redone—Stan “Ask Arlen” Schell, they would say. The only person who had any reason to know he had not always been Arlen had a vested interest in keeping the column alive.
To the first talk show host who speculated as to why a science fiction writer would write a wacky syndicated column for the socially troubled under a pseudonym, he owed the widely bruited tale that he had been afraid people wouldn’t accept advice from a writer of fantastic fiction. He had nodded amiably, too, when that same host suggested his mindset was a little bizarre. “A little alien?” he’d asked when the host seemed to be searching for a word. The audience chuckled. He loved that sound.
“Do you think anyone really takes your advice?” last night’s host had asked him.
Dear God, I hope not, he’d thought, opened his mouth and parroted Qtzl’s “Well, I should hope so. I mean, look at the (twullip, said Qtzl)… uh, crap these other columnists dish out. To take their advice is to perpetuate undesirable behavior by failing to respond to it in an appropriate manner.”
“Like neglecting to take a bite out of your girlfriend’s hot dog.”
The audience tittered.
Stan flushed, simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. “Exactly. How many nascent relationships have been throttled by such inattention to ritual?”
The tittering escalated.
“We should commission a study,” said the host and cut away to a commercial on laughter and applause.
Clearly, people didn’t know how to take Stan or his alter-ego. Was he a con man—a clever writer with his own money-making shtick, or was he a sort of a rain man, a walking malapropism, a social misfit who had somehow parlayed his cockeyed world view into celebrity? He was fairly certain no one had arrived at the truth—that he was a struggling writer being fed lines by an alien.
Interviewers hovered between the smugness of a shared joke and the credulity born of uncertainty. Some were afraid to poke fun at him for fear, his agent told him, that he’d reveal himself to be a sufferer of Asperger’s Syndrome or some other condition it would be socially indefensible to joke about. It hardly mattered. Qtzl didn’t seem to understand when he was being made fun of and Stan, though sometimes on the verge of bolting from stage or studio, would simply deliver his prompter’s solemn responses into whatever situation he found himself. The result was always laughter, which translated into book sales, fame, and fortune.
The fact that his books tended to be rather serious in tone only added to the mystery. There was nothing of Arlen in Stan’s novels (which were now all back in print and selling briskly, thank you), which led to his emergence as a character of great complexity.
Then the fact of his electronic link to an offstage source came to light. “Legal counsel,” he’d told the host of a much-watched daytime talk show. “I have to be very careful what I reveal about the people whose letters I’ve responded to. If I were to give away their location—even the town they live in—or their real names, which they sometimes confide in me… well…”
The explanation had not been acceptable to everyone. Before long it was being trumpeted by the tabloids that there was a man (or woman) behind the scenes. Someone was giving Stan Schell his cues. Speculation blossomed, naturally, and gave birth to a ludicrous array of ideas, the dominant ones being that (1) he was fronting for someone who was equal parts rain man and elephant man—a tragic, fragile soul who did not dare appear; and (2) his offstage prompter was a person of such fame and fortune that to reveal themselves would bring unwanted attention, even ruin. Candidates for this included the Queen of England, the President of the United States, a terminally dignified news anchor, and an ultra-right-wing radio personality with MPD.
All this spawned something Stan had always thought was an oxymoron—unwanted attention. Six months after he had first appeared on the Tonight Show, mentally humming “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” he was beginning to whine about his “lack of privacy and personal control.” He’d heard any number of Hollywood celebrities make that plaint and had thought them unrealistic weenies. Deeply immersed in his personal drama, his own weeniness escaped him.
One afternoon, Stan Schell took control of his life in the only way he could. He shaved off his beard, leaving only a professorial goatee. He was congratulating himself and patting his face dry when the FRU shuttled into the bathroom behind him.
“Stan,” it said, “we have a problem.”
“Out of cheese puffs?”
“No, Stan. This is rather more serious.”
He turned to look at the FRU, vaguely disturbed, as always, that no expression could be read in the gleaming manta shell. “Not the Ship.”
“Someone has advanced the idea that you are a front for an alien presence on Earth.”
The only response that seemed appropriate was laughter. When he had gotten his hilarity under control, he asked, “Who’d believe such a ridiculous story? The person who made that up?”
“But, Stan, he did not make it up, as you well know.”
“He?” Stan felt his pulse leap. “He who?”
Ship proceeded to tell him about the college student who had appeared one evening trying to get information about the crash of a meteorite. “I have no doubt what he actually witnessed was our landfall.”
Stan shook his head. “Ship, think about it. Who’s going to believe a whacko tale like that?”
“Tabloids, Stan. UFO chasers. There is more. We have received a threatening e-mail. This person has said he will expose the location of this cabin to tabloid reporters if you do not—as he put it—come clean.”
“I can’t ‘come clean,’ Ship. Not without giving you and Qtzl up to…” He realized he had no idea what he’d be giving them up to. “How soon can you leave?”
“I estimate three more days of constant work on my part.”
“Did this guy leave a return address?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll have to try to stall him. I’ll… invite him up here—Thursday. That will give you your three days.”
Ship hovered silently for a moment. “What will you do, Stan Schell, when we are gone?”
“Me? I don’t know. Retire. Try to make it on science fiction alone. I can’t continue to be Arlen.”
“Why not?” asked Ship.
“I don’t think the way he does. I’m not alien.”
“In your books you purport to write from the alien’s point of view. Is that not what writing science fiction is all about—being able to put oneself in an alien setting of some sort? To be able to report what one sees through alien eyes? You once claimed you were a ‘damn good science fiction writer. ’ How can that be if your imagination fails to let you be alien?”