Far-out Show (9781465735829) (17 page)

“I am not able to be certain about that,”
Wilburps said. “Because the noisy interfering is so big a
confusion, my estimate is that it is very little likely I am doing
that though.”

“Much saddening it makes to know that but
this adventure has been filled and sloppening over with disappoint
me stuff.”

“Would it help your situation if you could
send all its stored stuff to whoever your producers are?” Krinkle
asked.

Nerber said, “We interpret your asking and
decide the response is yes. Without having full knowing of what
others are doing to make no messages to us, I can say good show
material might make them eagerly to be getting it all and not
making a risk to lose some because of running over the top of the
pot.”

Krinkle pulled into a supermarket parking lot
and into a spot far from the building or other parked cars. Nerber
looked around anxiously, not sure what was happening and so worried
about what it might be.

Nerber’s fears were not instantly allayed
when Krinkle got out and opened the back door. But when the man
simply reached in and threw a switch on the jammer, then got back
in the driver’s seat, the visitor from Ormelex relaxed.

“Ask it if that makes a difference,” Krinkle
said.

Wilburps announced, “The interfering is gone.
I am sending on all that is stored up and checking for any messages
or instructions that have not been able to reach us.”

They sat looking around at the scene for
several minutes before Nerber said, “The sending is completely
finishinged up. Wilburps is back to only what has happened close by
in time and space, ready to fill up with more interesting stuff for
to fascinate and pacify the masses.”

Nerber tensed when Krinkle got out of the car
but relaxed when he only reached into the back and turned the
jammer on again. “Sorry but since the Army’s trying to locate you
by detecting signals that they can’t understand it’s important to
our safety to keep your machine from sending those and bringing
them down on us.”

Nerber got out and glanced nervously at the
sky for anything coming down on that spot as Krinkle got back
behind the wheel. Nerber reported, “Wilburps says the interfering
is back and as it was before.”

“Which means my jammer does what I want it
to.”

Nerber gestured that he needed a moment here.
He opened the back door and leaned in as if to take a closer look
at the jammer, then without warning did the tapping sequence on
Wilburps that manually deactivated the zerpy. The fact that it
settled onto the seat from its hovering position showed that
operation was successful.

Krinkle had watched that. He gave Nerber a
questioning look and got a
give me a moment here
gesture in
response.

Nerber took Wowseyla off his hat and touched
the spots that brought out the virtual keyboard and view screen.
When the mini-zerpy signaled it was ready, he moved it around
Wilburps without the devices touching. He looked closely at the
report on the view screen and nodded.

“What are you doing?” Krinkle whispered,
afraid that even a noise might interfere with something important.
“Oh wait, with that turned off there’s no translation so we can’t
talk. This could get hard.”

Nerber waved Wowseyla. “Smaller and more
powerful model. It translates and does many other jobs for me.”

“Neat. Our devices are getting smaller but
able to do more things all the time too.”

“I make to verification that Wilburps is not
getting or sending off signals but not telling me about them.”

“Could it do that?”

“It is within the design limits of that class
of zerpies, yes. I am specializing of the knowhow of them so I know
about that subject. Your jammer is making it all not happen.”

“Am I causing you to be in more danger than
you would be in otherwise? I’m trying to use it to protect us.”

Nerber gestured that he was going to test
something. He keyed code into Wowseyla, reached in and put a hand
on Wilburps, and waited.

After a moment he gave an annoyed shake of
his head and then returned the mini-zerpy to its minimum size and
put it back on his hat. “I made a testing but for now I am still
here, not abled to be taken back to
Whizybeam
that is what
you would call the space ship I came from. It is things up there,
not your jammer, that keep that from being happened.”

Krinkle nodded that he understood. He said,
“Neat way to hide that in plain sight. It doesn’t look that
important and there’s no sneaking about it so we ignore it.
Smart.”

Nerber gestured that this was a touchy matter
but he had to say something. “Wilburps should not know what I am
having just done. We should not mention it.”

“He could pass that information along to
others without you or even he knowing it and that could mean
trouble for you?”

Nerber nodded that that was the case and that
he was relieved that the man understood the situation.

“I’ll be careful what I say,” Krinkle
said.

Nerber reached in and finger-tapped the
signal on Wilburps that reactivated the device that floated two
inches into the air as it turned on.

Did something happen to me, Nerber? I cannot
be certain but I seem to have a gap in my awareness.

“Are you functioning properly now?” Nerber
asked.

“Self-diagnostic tests identify no
problems.”

“Are we ready to move on?” Krinkle asked. “If
they can pick up your signals they’re maybe zeroing in on us right
now. That might be what affected your device.”

Nerber made a small bow of admiration to the
man for fitting that in so neatly as they both made sure the back
door by them was closed and got in the front seats.

Krinkle didn’t so much as look sheepishly at
the alien device on the back seat as he drove them away.

“What is your current status,” Nerber asked.
“To let me hear it report.”

“The dreadful interfering noise is returned
as annoying as before. Also the unidentified source from-near-space
signals are back. They are as strong and confusing as before. Did
we wake a sleeping dragon or something? That was what the make
translating program brought up but I can find no explanations.”

“I understand the reference and the answer is
that we hope not. I won’t try to explain it all, just take it as a
storybook idea,” Krinkle said. “Now to figure out where we can
safely hole up for a while. Let me think about this. I never
imagined quite this situation so I didn’t plan for it.”

For a time they drove in silence as Krinkle
concentrated on the surroundings, alert for any vehicles on the
road or in the air that seemed to be following his car. Nerber
sensed the man’s nervousness and assumed the inhabitant had a
better idea of the form any threats to them would take and was
doing what was needed to avoid those threats.

As they drove through an urban area Krinkle’s
expression of grim determination melted into a hard smile but
Nerber didn’t notice since he was fascinated by the surroundings as
they moved into a non-residential area of railroad yards and an
elevated section of an expressway. Wilburps hovered high enough to
let it see out the windows on all sides, recording all of this for
the home audience to try to make sense of.

Just ahead a bell started to clang and a
number of red lights began to blink. A railroad crossing arm that
pointed into the air jerked and shook a bit as the motor
controlling its position activated and it began to descend. Nerber
worried if this meant he had been taken into a trap.

Krinkle called, “Hang on, we’re gonna beat
this.” Then he stepped on the gas and wove left and then right to
avoid the descending barrier arms on both sides of the four
parallel rail tracks. Halfway through that maneuver Nerber realized
that the large mass off to his right with the bright light on the
front that extended more or less continuously as far as he could
see was moving at a steady rate toward them. A loud deep note blast
sounded, apparently made by that mass.

But once they were beyond the gate and
continuing at a slower pace Krinkle became clearly more
relaxed.

As the long freight train traversed the
crossing behind them, flickers of light made it clear to Nerber and
his zerpy that this was multiple units connected in a line rather
than a continuous tube as seemed to be the case when seeing it only
head-on.

Krinkle said, “That’s called a freight train.
Those boxcars are full of stuff being moved a long way from place
to place. For us right now it’s a convenient blocker if anyone’s
following us since they can’t come across there until the whole
long train has passed and by then we’ll be out of sight so they
won’t know where to look to pick up our trail.”

“Somebody is making to hold our trail? Or is
that the same like our tail?” Nerber asked.

“I can’t be sure but this takes care of them
if there is somebody. It’d be just my luck that Reggie’s back there
waiting to move in and screw things up but this makes it her bad
luck.”

At that Nerber made a left turn and drove
down the narrow access road beside the overhead highway. Two city
blocks up there he pulled into a trash-strewn spot where the
superstructure of the ascending highway was only a few feet above
them. He stopped, turned off the engine, and looked around.

“This is why for to be an okay place?”

“We can sit here while I figure out the best
place for us to go. If the Army or anybody else detected your
machine’s signals and was narrowing in on us, their radar or
whatever they’d use probably can’t detect us here with the highway
right above us. That’s certainly true if they were following us
from a airplane or even a satellite. It’s wonderful what they can
see with something way far up there in the sky. Just relax while I
figure this out. If you see anybody though, tell me.”

“This be a long time stay-and-be-safe
place?”

“Unfortunately no. I wouldn’t even stop here
after dark. Not a nice neighborhood. Hoodlums and junkies desperate
for anything to get a few bucks for roam the area then. Not a place
to be when you can’t see ‘em coming and get on outta here by making
them think you’ll run ‘em down if they try to stop you.”

“Is muchness of confusioning talk-talk for my
zerpy to give a translation for but I grasp it means a negation to
my question.”

“Sorry, I realize translation’s a problem and
then I forget to try to simplify to make it as easy as
possible.”

“Hurry on with your weighting of optioning.
Is making of sense these words?”

“Weighing our options? Yeah, that’s what I’m
doing. At first I thought I could take you to my place where I live
alone so you’d be safe there for a long time, barring any
unpleasant unexpected consequences of your presence,” Krinkle
said.

“
Unpleasant unexpected consequences of my
presence
means what? Am I making to do things in wrongish
ways?”

“No, what I’m thinking of is
War of the
Worlds
type stuff and NASA decontamination processes. Uh,
there’s a chance that you brought with you germs that could hurt me
even though they’re harmless to you. I knew going in that this was
a risk but I accepted it for the chance to talk to you but I can’t
help worrying about it. I have to weigh the chance that you’re an
infection danger to my whole species and my whole planet.”

Nerber sat with an expression of
compassionate interest on his face as Wilburps silently filled him
on what Krinkle had said and the background information the zerpy
had been able to collect to explain the inhabitant’s concerns. Not
all the details made sense to the Ormelexian or the zerpy but the
basic concerns did – and suggested hazards from visits to other
worlds that his kind hadn’t considered until now.

Nerber felt that this matter should be taken
into account. He also realized that as the only one of his kind
whom he knew for certain had landed on the planet and made any
contact with the inhabitants he was possibly the sole potential
contagion source for Ormelex so it would make sense for his kind to
at least restrict him, if not permanently bar him from returning.
Or they could bring him back as a dead hero forever encased in some
protective layer so he could be safely exhibited as a distraction.
No, on further thought, while the governors needed to consider any
returning pioneer as a possible hazard to the whole planet they
wouldn’t want the populace to find out they promoted secret
explorations without fully developed and ready ways to test if
there were hazards on any visited planet and to deal with the
dangers if there were.

“Are you all right? You seem sort of spaced
out,” Krinkle said as he stared at his passenger.

“What makes for you a worry I am thinking how
to make not be a problem so you know it is for factual.”

“I think that means you’re hoping to convince
me there’s no danger of that sort. I’d appreciate any assurance
about that but I’ve made my move so if you are somehow the end of
humanity it’s my bad. For now I have to worry about me leading the
Army to you. Not me here and present, me my identity that if either
Zippedy or Reggie says too much could send troops looking for me at
my usual haunts. That means I have to try to not do what I’d
usually do and especially not go where I’d usually go. So my
apartment’s out of the question but I need a place where I can keep
up with the latest news. Zippedy took his TV with him so that’s no
good and the car radio only works sometimes.”

“What we move inside of is called your car,
is this right?”

“Yeah. Basic transportation but, now that I
think about it, tagged. If they want to find me they’ll have the
police and all the snoopers watching for this crate. I’d cover over
the license plate but that might attract police attention even when
nothing else is getting through to them. Dang, things get
complicated in a hurry! I can’t afford to not have wheels but I can
hardly afford to have ones they can trace. Even if I rent a car
there’s a paper trail that can put them after me before long. I
can’t steal a car because I don’t know how to hot wire one.
Besides, that would also be a license number to go on a police
watch list once it’s reported. Where can we lay low?”