"Rocket ship." Lee smiled. "We just want to help Mr. Cole. Dr. Cole, actually. He was very famous once, did you know that? He has earned a pension from the National Science Foundation, but there was something wrong with the paperwork."
Joe Jefferson nodded sourly. He understood mistakes in paperwork.
"So all I need is his signature, and he can collect his pension," Lee said. "It's not a lot of money, but I bet he can use it. Is he around?"
"No, ma'am, leastways I haven't seen him. He used to sleep in that rocket, but a couple of days ago a lot of people come here and took them trucks away, and his… and some other stuff that belonged to Mr. Cole, and I ain't seen him since."
"A lot of people," Arteria said. She smiled. "Tell me about them."
" 'Milkheim Low Fat Milk.' Two big Peterbilt tanker trucks," Arteria said. "Look, Billings this is a long shot, we'll really look like idiots if it doesn't work out. I can't afford to look like an idiot, can you? Right. So what I want is a quiet request to State Police to report the location of any truck that says Milkheim and report it to my fax number. Observe and report, but don't stop them. But don't ask Wisconsin or Minnesota or the Dakotas. Right, Billings. Do not ask them. Yes, Billings, exactly right, it means you have to send out requests to the others one state at a time, and I'm sorry, but you see how it is. Chances are this is nothing but if it pans out we may both get promotions. Right. Thanks."
Fang guided the milk truck through the interchange and onto I-25 South. The Denver skyline glittered before him: tall, boxy, glass towers cut at strange angles. Fang squinted his eyes and tried to imagine that they were a growth of immense quartz crystals set in the midst of the High Plains. By aliens. Uh-huh: aliens. After cutting their teeth on Great Pyramids and Easter Island self-portraits, the space gods had finally hit their stride with this immense crystalline structure. White quartz, black quartz. Quartz as clear as glass; opaque, stony quartz.
Suppose someone discovered Denver's alien origin, and the aliens were still around! Disguised as real estate developers. Good. That was good. Who was in a better position to "grow" a crystal city than its developers? Come to think of it, who was more alien? What hidden purposes did they have behind their weirdly shaped erections?
Okay. The aliens are metaphors for mindless, runaway development. That made the story literary. So, the aliens realize they've been found. What do they do?
They capture Our Heroes and turn them into bug juice. Alien Cliche number one, vintage 1950.
They capture Our Heroes and take them on a tour of the universe and invite them to join the galactic confederation. Alien Cliche number two, vintage 1980.
Damn Hollywood. No matter what kind of aliens you had, they were already used up.
No, wait. Remember Nancy Kress's "People Like Us?" That's it. The aliens are neither benign nor malevolent. They do what they do for their own reasons… like the aliens who built Clarke's Rama. Like the Europeans coming to America. The Spaniards came for gold; the Incas were just in the way. The destruction of the Amerind societies was simply a spin-off of Europeans doing European things for European reasons.
Good title: "Spin-off."
He was so deep in the story that he didn't see the flashing red light behind him for several seconds. Ohshit! But I wasn't speeding, dammit. He pulled over carefully and stopped on the shoulder.
The Colorado state trooper walked up to the cab window and smiled. "Sorry to stop you, sir, but I noticed one of your brake lights is out. The middle one on the left side."
"Aw, shit. Thank you, Officer, I'll get it fixed at the next truck stop."
"Yes, I think you ought to. OK, just wanted to let you know." The trooper turned away, then turned back again. "Driving alone? Where'd you sleep, last?"
"Only ten hours, Officer. Really."
"All right. We're strict on that in Colorado." He walked back to his cruiser.
Fang let out a deep breath. I am sleepy, he thought. And there's sure no hurry, they don't want me to be in Albuquerque until tomorrow afternoon. I'll get that light fixed and catch some z's. He was careful to accelerate smoothly and level out, his speed just at the limit. After a while the cruiser passed him and went on ahead, leaving him to his thoughts.
So, it's the same with the aliens who are building Denver--and all the other strange glass-box downtowns. Aliens doing alien things for alien reasons. Only human egocentrism would suppose that they came to conquer or assist us.
So Our Heroes discover the aliens and the aliens don't do anything. Who would believe it anyway? They don't even bother to capture the protagonists and tell them… No, wait. The reader has to know what's coming down, so someone's got to explain. Unless he sent the story to Ted Bistrop at Fantasy amp; … Nothing was ever explained in the stories he published.
The fax machine was built into the car's dashboard. It startled Arteria with its "wheep, wheep."
PETERBILT 18-WHEELER TANKER MARKED MILKHEIM LOW FAT MILK PROCEEDING SOUTH ON I-25 AT DENVER. DRIVER OLD FART WITH BEARD. COLORADO STATE HIGHWAY POLICE OBSERVED MINOR SAFETY VIOLATION. NO CITATION ISSUED.
BILLINGS.
Denver. What in hell do they want with a truck full of rocket fuel in Denver? Whatever it is, I've got some driving to do if I'm going to catch up.
Her suitcase was already in the trunk. Her telephone and fax were connected to the cellular phone system, so she didn't have to tell anyone where she was going. She took out maps.
Not Denver. Colorado Springs? USAF Space Command had been there, when there was a Space Command. It was the reason Arteria had joined the Air Force. Fifteen years ago, even ten, you could kid yourself that the United States might go back to space, get moving again, stop retreating from the Ice.
Not now. Now--
The Milwaukee alderman had upset her more than she wanted to admit.
Now I can never go to space. I catch criminals.
It was a job she mostly liked. She was good at it, good at solving puzzles, and she liked the power that being an OSI Special Agent aye her. Twitching the nerves of the mundanes, she liked that, too.
Not Denver! West of there. Edwards! It came as a sudden flash, as things often did for her, and it took her several minutes to construct what her subconscious had leaped past. Angels Down. Fans to the Rescue. What to do with Angels. Send them back to Heaven. How? Dr. Cole's broken Titan, but that wouldn't do it. What would? What was left?
What was left was the only working rocket ship in the United States. Phoenix, sitting on Thunder Ridge at Edwards Air Force Base.
Morning in the desert.
Alex watched the sun come up across Bob's shoulder, teasing streamers of fog from the sluggish Washita River that ran parallel to the highway. The fog slithered across the barren, dusty ground and wrapped itself around the sparse stands of Lone Pine and scrub grass that dotted the otherwise empty land. The pale light of dawn created a wash of white, green and brown; a weird, alien vista of mist and grass and sand.
"What do you think of it?" Bob asked. "Quite a sight."
Alex shook his head. "I was just getting used to the green."
"Oh, this part of Oklahoma used to be green, I'm told. You didn't see real hardpan desert until you hit west Texas. Now there's no rain and in a few years there won't be a speck of green left hereabouts."