Far-out Show (9781465735829) (9 page)

They both laughed.

Ricky got out his cell phone. “I should
spread the word to watch for disappearing aliens. This could be
worth a few laughs. What the hell, if the news guys want an
interview about my close encounter of the grungy football kind I’ll
go along with that.”

“The big question will be whether the girls
want to be touched by the hand that touched an alien or want to
stay far away from that hand.”

“Yeah. But it’d be about groping, not just
touching.”

“Of course. I know you.”

Well kept, good-sized older single houses
lined both sides of tree-lined Elmworm Street that intersected
Oakline Street two blocks from the park. The corner properties had
noteworthy clumps of mature shrubs and a tree or two on the lawns
and near the sidewalks.

Nerber, toting Wilburps backpack-style, came
up Oakline Street hoping to talk to Adam Parker whom he could see
from a distance as the man trudged across the intersection toting
six plastic bags of groceries. Pale and weak because of an illness,
Parker was thirty but looked older. The faded old baggy trousers
and shirt he wore didn’t help him look hale or hearty.

Parker glanced to the side and saw Nerber.
With an exaggerated sigh of relief the man set his bags down. He
didn’t look directly toward Nerber, only sneaked a glance to see if
this person would try to avoid him. A tiny bit of a smile crossed
his face when it was clear Nerber wanted to talk.

“Is it a nice day today, yes?” Nerber asked
pleasantly.

“Not if you made the mistake of trying to
carry too much home in one trip,” Adam replied with
hint,
hint
dripping from the words and his sigh.

“I gladly meet you. I am called Nerber.”

“I'm Adam Parker. I live not far down the
street but I haven't been well. I'm not sure I can carry all these
bags there myself.”

Nerber stared hard at Parker, ready to smile
but not sure if he was being teased.

Parker was confused by this reaction. “What's
the matter?”

“This is for reality? You are Adam, the first
of yours by your book?”

Parker thought about that for a moment then
responded, “My name is Adam but no, I'm not the one from the garden
of Eden. There are a lot of men named Adam around these days. But I
am
a man so tuckered out he may not make it down this street
with all his heavy bags though.”

“With not much information about your kind I
get... Is
befuddled
a word?” Nerber asked.

“Sure. I know that feeling. Like when you're
all but hitting a guy over the head with hints and he’s not getting
it.”

Nerber listened to Wilburps's comment in his
head, then reacted as if surprised by the idea the zerpy now
silently suggested. “Would it make you ready to talk with me if I
carry some bags to your destination?”

“Yes, I'd appreciate any help, thanks.”
Parker picked up three of his bags and waited for Nerber to get the
others but Nerber only stood there with a dumb grin.

Parker shook his head in disbelief at that,
then sighed and reached for the other bags.

Nerber jerked as if given a shock and picked
up the bags that Parker gladly relinquished. “Now I am graspening
it.”

They started off down the street. “You are
like any of your kind, no? An
e-pi-to-me
? Is that a
word?”

“I'm sickly and at thirty still live at home
with my mother more by choice than real need so no, I'm not typical
and sure not an epitome.”

Parker and Nerber turned in at an older house
with a covered front porch. Open but screened living room and
dining room windows were on opposite sides of the screened front
door.

Adam’s mother Edith called from inside, “I
was about to send the police to try to find you.”

“I tried to carry too much and had to get
this fellow to help me make it.” Adam led the way inside.

* * *

A few minutes later Nerber sat on the living
room sofa, Wilburps in the guise of his backpack hovering inches
off the floor by his feet. He gawked at the racks of knickknacks
and many small framed photos and simple craft items on the walls,
end tables, and two etageres.

Edith Parker, sixty, wearing a flowered house
dress and slippers, sat in an easy chair that gave her a view out
the open window. Adam sat in a matching chair across from her and
where both of them had clear views of the TV in the corner beside
the sofa. The set was on and tuned to sit com reruns with the audio
at a low volume.

Edith said, “You were kind to help my son
with his burdens. He hasn't been well.”

Nerber looked around, fascinated as he tried
to imagine what the many knickknacks and other small items might
mean or be used for.

“Of course living at home with mom at his age
raises questions in some minds but I don’t pay those much heed. I
think it bothers him more than he wants to let on though.”

A bump against his leg focused Nerber on his
zerpy as it inched forward and turned slowly to give it’s sensors a
view of more of the room to record all this stuff. Nerber gave a
little start as he realized what was happening and why. He looked
at the two humans and concluded they probably hadn’t noticed that
movement but would likely do so if it continued. Edith in
particular seemed tightly focused on the visitor and his actions
and reactions.

Pretending to be only nonchalantly drumming
his fingers on it, Nerber touched some control points on the
zerpy’s top, then left his hand resting on it to detect any further
movement.

“I don’t much care what people think. I do
what I have to so I can get by,” Adam said with a shrug.

“It’s not like we’re in the public eye or
keeping the tabloids in business,” Edith said.

“We’re not in the fast lane but that suits us
fine,” Adam said. “Exciting stuff’s okay to watch on the boob tube
but who with any sense wants to be in the middle of all that?”

Act interested in what they are saying,
Nerber
.

I interested truly am but unsure also I am of
how they signal that to one another. I do not want to send bad
signals.

“Are you okay with becoming tabloid fodder,
Mr. Nerber?” Edith asked.

Nerber gave a little jump, the result of
simultaneously being asked a question he did not understand by
Edith and getting a minor electric shock from Wilburps. He dealt
with the latter incident first. He stretched his neck a bit as if
trying to see something at the door to the room. That had the
intended effect of prompting both Parkers to look that way.

While they were thus distracted, Nerber
rapidly pushed a series of spots on Wilburps. He understood that
the producers were sending him silent commands to reverse the
restraints he had manually imposed on the zerpy. They were eager to
more fully record the many items in here. But he was not about to
risk having the device attract unwanted attention that might
interfere with his plans both for the show’s challenges and in the
bigger picture. He knew that the producers cared less about him and
more about the catalog of images they were amassing.

To the surprise and annoyance of the
producers though, he knew enough about Wilburps’s class of zerpy to
take control of it in ways they couldn’t override from afar. His
signals were a warning to them that if they continued to risk
causing him problems he would shut down the zerpy even more. Since
they didn’t know he had Wowseyla they would expect that to leave
him helpless with no translation capacity. They might decide that
would be exciting program material - but since Wilburps couldn’t
record it, much less send it to them, they would be the losers.

Wilburps vibrated a bit, the zerpy equivalent
of purring. A signal that the crew would cooperate with Nerber. He
was now supposed to remove the restraints so the zerpy would be
free to move in any way when and if that was desirable. He didn’t
trust them but he did release the restraints. But he kept his hand
on the zerpy to detect any movement it made since he understood the
strategy of progressive stages of rebuke and restraint.

Now Nerber got back to Edith’s question since
both Parkers were staring at him. “Much have I the sorry,
forgiveness is needed. What means ‘tabloid father’?”

Adam guffawed. “Fodder, not father. I can see
why that had you perplexed. She meant would being talked about all
over the place bother you? Do you want to be in the spotlight?”

Nerber hesitated as Wilburps silently
translated that.

Finally Nerber said, “This is not where I
would be hateful of truly being if my celerity could be of
usefulness. Is okay a word
celerity
?”

“You probably mean
celebrity
,” Adam
suggested. “It’s funny what a difference a single letter can
make.”

Nerber was ready to accept the challenge of
following that line of thought but when he felt Wilburps sl-o-wly
gliding forward he affected a cough, leaned forward and rapidly
tapped signal code into the zerpy while seeming to be grasping at
it to help steady himself.

Sitting back up he apologized. “Much have I
the sorry again. Your forgivingness is needed. Talk-talk is full of
cooking implements stuck in roadway openings indeed.”

“Indeed,” Edith said and threw Adam a
what-is-it-with-guy look.

Nerber received a stronger shock from the
zerpy but since he had anticipated that possibility he tolerated it
without pulling his hand away or shouting out in pain. Again he
leaned forward and affected a cough – and let his fingers do the
trouncing on the front side of the zerpy.

When he sat up this time the Parkers were
staring at him with at least mild concern. “Do they have flu where
you come from,” Mr. Nerber?” Edith asked.

“Please not to be filled with dread, I bring
you no bad creeping and crawling thingees.” He pointed to a
walnut-sized striped marine snail shell on an end table. “Is this
nice to be looking at. I am filled with interest of what it is you
make it be useful to do.”

Edith looked her question at Adam. He said,
“I think he wants to know what the snail shell’s for.”

While they were distracted Nerber gave a
small wince as he was silently bombarded with harsh messages sent
via Wilburps.

“That? It’s a souvenir from a trip to the
shore. It’s just to look at and remember the nice day we had there.
We don’t
use
it for anything.”

“Maybe it’s like that rock thing on your hat.
Is that a souvenir of where you bought the hat?” Edith asked. “Of
course in this country we think keeping your hat on inside the
house is sort of strange. Maybe even a bit rude.”

Nerber’s expression during this mirrored his
quick sequence of emotions from surprise to anger to determined
pushback that had nothing to do what was being said by the
Parkers.

“Don’t go getting all uppity like that’s
important,” Adam chided.

“I’m just saying,” Edith said with a note of
defensiveness.

Adam faced Nerber a bit more as he tried to
smooth things over. “Of course you want to consider something
attractive like that shell as a nice thing to look at on a gloomy
day or the memory of that trip to the shore as a pleasant balance
when there’s a lot of shitty stuff happening.”

Nerber didn’t touch the zerpy or even look at
it. His response was mental, not manual, but it was emphatic,
specific, and determined enough to convey his counter-threats and
promises of consequences the producers wouldn’t want to deal
with.

The Ormelexian brought himself back to the
situation here. He knew his hosts had said things while he and
Wilburps were otherwise engaged with priority matters but he didn’t
know what.

So, with a mental shrug that apparently some
social moves are universal, Nerber said, “Much of interest for
surely true.”

“This place is full of junk that’s not worth
anything to anybody else but it all has some meaning for us,” Edith
said. “Heck, even that TV has a story. We won that in a contest at
the market. Got a ham and a case of canned niblet corn too.”

The myriad other items in the room had quite
fascinated Nerber so he only now noticed and stared hard at the TV,
his jaw slowly opening in amazement as he watched.

Seeing this Edith and Adam exchanged looks
and shrugs. “Don't recognize this old show?” Edith asked.

“I have heard the voices but I am seeing it
for the first time. There is much I did not know about it.”

“You must come from a pretty sheltered place.
These old shows are on almost full time on cable,” Adam
commented.

“There is much to tell those at home. They
will be very excited.”

“Where you from, Mr. Nerber?” Edith
asked.

“Oh, very far away. On another world.”

“We went all the way to the Mexican border
when I was a kid,” Adam said. “Didn't cross over, of course.”

Nerber thought hard about this revelation.
“You were kid?”

Edith laughed, “Adam only seems like an old
coot. He's not that old 'cause that'd make me ancient and I ain't
that yet.”

Nerber's face showed his uncertainty as he
waited for Wilburps to translate and make sense of that and inform
him about what he had just been told.

Adam said, “Of course some people object to
the word kid since it might confuse those not in the know who'd
think of goats.”

Nerber brightened as that helped Wilburps
comprehend the kid reference but then he had to process a new item.
He asked, “Please, what means
not in the know
?”

“That's not a biggie,” Edith replied. “So how
was your trip here from wherever you came from? I assume you
flew.”

“My trip was fast and bumpety. Am I sure that
is a for real word? Yet I am here with no parts no more with me so
is okay, no?”