'What's it seem to be ?' Turpin asked apprehensively. 'We better not get too close; it may shoot us down.' He cringed from the idea of an emergency crash: he was well aware of the brittleness of his bones. Any sort of unsafe landing would end his life. And he did not want it ended, just now.
This was the worst possible time.
'I'll swing back that way,' Woodbine said, returning to the controls. A moment later the 'hopper had reversed its direction.
And, at last, Turpin could perceive the other object in the sky. It was clearly not a bird; no wings flapped, and anyhow it was too large. He knew, saw with his own eyes, that it was an artificial construct, a man-made vehicle.
The vehicle was hurrying off as rapidly as possible.
Woodbine said, 'It won't be long; it's very slow. You know what it looks like ? A boat, a goddam boat. It's got a hull and sails. It's a flying boat.' Hi; laughed tautly. 'It's absurd!'
Yes, Turpin thought. It does look grotesque. It's a wonder it can stay up. And now, sure enough, the boat-shaped airborne vehicle was dipping down in increasingly narrowing spirals, its sails hanging limply. The vehicle held one single person who, they could now see, was working frantically with the controls of his craft. Was he trying to land it or keep it in the air ? Turpin did not know, but in any case the vehicle was about to land - or crash.
It landed. In an open pasture, away from trees.
As the 'hopper began to descend after it, the figure within leaped from the vehicle and scampered off to disappear into the closest stand of trees.
'We frightened him,' Woodbine said, as he brought the 'hopper expertly down beside the parked, abandoned craft. 'But anyhow we get to examine his ship; that ought to tell us a lot, practically everything we want to know.' Immediately he slammed the cabin hatch back and scrambled out, to drop to the ground. Without waiting for Stanley or Turpin, he sprinted toward the parked alien vehicle.
As he, too, clambered out of the 'hopper Don Stanley murmured, 'It looks like it's made out of wood.' He dropped to the ground and walked over to stand beside Woodbine.
I'd better stay here, Leon Turpin decided. Too risky for me to try to get out; I might break a leg.
And anyhow it's their job to inspect this flying machine. That's what I hired them for.
'It's wood, all right,' Stanley said, his voice filtering to Leon Turpin, mixing with the rushing of wind through the nearby trees. 'And a cloth sail; I guess it's canvas.'
'But what makes it go ?' Woodbine said, walking all around it. 'Is it just a glider ? No power supply ?'
'That was certainly a timid individual in it,' Stanley said.
'How do you think a jet-hopper would look to the innocent eye ?' Woodbine said severely. 'Pretty horrible. But he had the courage to follow us for a time.' He had climbed up on the vehicle and was peering inside. 'It's laminated wood,' he said suddenly. 'Very thin layers. Looks to be extremely strong.' He banged on the hull with his fist.
Stanley, examining the rear of the craft, straightened up and said, 'It has a power supply. Looks like a turbine of some kind. Or possibly a compressor. Take a look at it.'
Together, as Leon Turpin watched, Frank Woodbine and Stanley studied the machinery which propelled the craft.
'What is it ?' Turpin yelled. His voice, in the open like this, sounded feeble.
Neither man paid any attention to him. He felt agitated and peeved, and he shifted about irritably, wishing they'd come back.
'Apparently,' Woodbine said, 'the turbine or whatever it is gives it an initial thrust which launches it. Then it glides for a while. Then the operator starts up the turbine once more and it receives an additional thrust. Thrust, coast, thrust, coast and so on. Odd damn way to get from, one place to another. My god, it may have to land at the end of each glide. Could that be ? It doesn't seem likely.'
Stanley said, 'Like a flying squirrel.' He turned to Woodbine. 'You know what ?' he said. 'The turbine is made out of wood, too.'
'It can't be,' Woodbine said. 'It’ll incinerate.'
'You can scrape the paint off,' Stanley said. He had a pocket knife open and was working with it.
'I'd guess this is asbestos paint; anyhow it's heat resistant. And underneath it, more laminated wood. I wonder what the fuel is.' He left the turbine, began walking all around the craft. 'I smell oil,' he said. 'I guess it could burn oil. The late twentieth century turbines and diesel engines all burned low-grade oil, so that's not too impossible.'
'Did you notice anything peculiar about the man piloting this ship ?' Woodbine said.
'No,' Stanley said. 'We were too far off. I could just barely make him out.'
Woodbine said, thoughtfully, 'He was hunched. I noticed it when he ran. He loped along decidedly bent over.'
9
Late at night, Tito Cravelli sat in his conapt, before a genuine fire, sipping Scotch and milk and reading over the written report which his contact at Terran Development had a little earlier in the evening submitted to him.
Softly, his tape deck played one of the cloud chamber pieces by the great mid-twentieth century composer, Harry Parch. The instrument, called by Parch 'the spoils of war', consisted of cloud chambers, a rasper, a modernized musical saw, and artillery shell casings suspended so as to resonate, each at a different frequency. And, as a ground bass accompanying the spoils of war instrument, one of Parch's hollow bamboo marimba-like inventions tapped out an intricate rhythm. It was a piece very popular these days with the public.
But Cravelli was not listening. His attention was fixed on the report of TD's activities.
The old man, Leon Turpin himself, had crossed over via the defective Jiffi-scuttler, along with various company personnel and media people. Turpin had managed to shake the reporters off and had made a sortie by jet-hopper. Something had been found on that sortie and had been carefully brought back to TD; it was now in their labs being examined. Cravelli's contact did not know precisely what it was.
However, one fact was clear. The object brought, back was an artifact. It was manmade.
Apparently Jim Briskin went off half-cocked, Cravelli said to himself. We're going to emigrate -
compel the bibs to emigrate - into a region already occupied. Too bad Jim didn't think of that.
Too bad I didn't think of it, for that matter.
We were fooled, it appeared, by the initial visual impression of the place. It seemed deserted, seemed susceptible to immigration.
Well, it can't be helped now, he realized. Jim made his speech; we're committed. We'll have to go on, hoping that we can still pull it off anyhow. But damn it, he thought. If only we had waited one more day!
Maybe we can kill them off, he thought. Maybe they'll catch some plague from us, die like flies.
He hated himself for having such thoughts. But there it was, clear in his mind. We need the room so badly, he realized. We've got to have it, no matter what. No matter how we have to go about it.
But will Jim agree ? He's so damn soft-hearted.
He's got to agree, Cravelli said to himself. Or it's the end -politically, for us, and in every way for the bibs.
While he was rereading the rather meager report, his door number was all at once tapped out; someone stood at the entrance to the conapt building, wanting permission to enter and visit him.
Cravelli put the report away and crossed the room to the audio-video circuit which connected his apt with the front door.
'Who is it ?' he said, guardedly. As always, he was somewhat wary of nocturnal visitors.
'It's me... Earl,' the speaker informed him. There was no video image, however; the man was standing deliberately out of range. 'Are you alone ?'
Instantly Cravelli said, 'Entirely.' He pressed the release button; fifteen stories below him the door automatically opened to admit Earl Bohegian, his contact at TD. 'You'll have to get by the doorman,' Cravelli told him. 'The key word for the building today is "potato." '