Thunderbird (19 page)

“You're referring to the illusions?”

“Yes. We've been handing out more tickets than usual lately. And we're beginning to see a pattern.”

“What's the pattern, Chief?”

“Drivers who are behaving as if they've been drinking too much or are on drugs.”

“And—?”

“They test negative. We had a collision last night at the intersection of Columbia Road and University Avenue. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. But a pickup ran the red light and hit a car. The driver of the pickup claimed that he'd lost his vision. Well, that's not quite correct. He said that he got pulled out of the truck. That he was suddenly above it. Above the intersection. And that he watched the collision from overhead.”

“And he tested negative?”

“That's correct. But that's not the strangest part of it. The other driver told us the same story.”

“He was above the street, too?”

“Yes. But the accident seemed to put them both back inside their vehicles.”

“That's incredible, Chief. It's hard to believe they weren't both on something.”

“And even that is not the end of it.”

“Go ahead,” said Brad, who knew what was coming. As did probably most of his listeners. “Tell us the rest.”

“We've had a series of similar incidents over the past week or so. The sky illusion isn't always there, but it usually is.”

“I've seen some of the accounts,” said Brad.

“Yeah. I've never seen anything like it. And it keeps getting weirder. I've been in touch with area law enforcement, of course. The same kind of thing's happening in Devils Lake, Cavalier, Fort Moxie, Fargo. There've been other kinds of incidents as well. People having illusions that sometimes turn out to be real.”

“For example?”

“One guy, at home, imagined he saw a neighbor lying out in back of his house. In serious trouble. The illusion was so strong he went out to look.”

“And the guy was there—”

“Yes.”

“I know. I saw the story. So what do you think's going on, Chief?”

“I have no idea, Brad. The only theory I can offer: People started seeing these stories in the papers, and it kind of takes hold. You do something dumb and get ticketed for it, and you're looking for an explanation, so you make something up. Then other people start to join the parade.”

“So you think all these people are lying?”

“I'm not saying that. But I think you'd have a better chance with a psychoanalyst here to explain this.”

“Okay, Chief,” said Brad. “Let's go to the callers.”

Mark Collins was first up: “What we're hearing, Chief, is that there's an alien running around causing all this. Presumably he can't be in two places at once. I wonder if we've checked to see whether any two of these incidents have occurred at the same time?”

“Actually,” said Cavalos, “we have, and we can't match any of them. No two have occurred within an hour of each other. But that's not a surprise in any case because there haven't been that many incidents.”

They were about ten minutes into the calls when they got the first claim of a personal experience. “It happened to me,” a woman said. “I was coming out of the supermarket with my son. And suddenly I was in a gray, drab
corridor. My impression was that it was like an abandoned hotel. No windows anywhere, though. I fell down, I heard my son screaming, but I couldn't see him. He's eight years old. Then the daylight was back. The groceries were all over the pavement. And my son had lost his as well. He said he saw the same thing I did.”

“Did you actually fall?”

“Yes.”

“Were you injured, Caller?”

“No. A bruise on one leg. That was all.”

Before the show had ended, there were seven similar calls. People who suddenly found themselves floating through the night sky, two who repeated the abandoned-hotel account, two who found themselves in open country. The landscape they described sometimes sounded dreary, a swollen sun, wide gray plains, no sign of habitation; at other times, there was an ocean, and a ringed world dominating a sky full of stars. One caller described a conversation with a dead husband.

Brad's show routinely drew its share of deranged calls. But he prided himself on knowing them when he heard them. These sounded legitimate despite the content. “Whatever else might be the case,” he told Chief Cavalos when they were off the air, “they're not making it up.”

Cavalos agreed.

That afternoon, when Brad was preparing to leave the station, the chief called. “You remember the question about simultaneous incidents?” he asked. “I checked it out. There have been three, but they happened in the same area.”

“So you're suggesting that, whatever's going on, whatever's causing it, there's only one.”

“Brad, I'm not sure I have any idea what I'm suggesting.”

This solemn moment of triumph, one of the greatest moments in the history of the world . . . this great hour which rings in a new era . . . and which is going to lift up humanity to a higher plane of existence for all the ages of the future.

—David Lloyd George, speech in London, November 11, 1918

A
PRIL
RODE
OUT
with Donna and Brad to the Fort Totten celebration. The party was well under way when they arrived. A reservation band was playing “Between Me and the Mountain” while people danced and sang. The chairman came over to welcome them.

Everybody knew April. They crowded around her, and she was obviously enjoying herself. Brad got a lot of attention, too.

The music was a mixture of blues and pop. It worked fine, setting exactly the upbeat tempo for the evening. Tables were loaded with chocolate croquettes and zucchini parmesan crisps and roasted tomato salsa and strawberry brownies and lemon meringue tartlets and a host of other treats. “I'm going to be two pounds heavier going home,” said Brad.

Donna laughed. “Now there's some technology I could buy into.”

“What's that?”

“Eat as much chocolate cake as you like, step onto the grid, and it just ships the extra weight to Eden.”

He and Donna were introduced to the mayor of Devils Lake and the
governor of North Dakota. Several former
Grand Forks Live
guests were present, including Michael Fossel. Some of the celebrities who'd flown in and blocked the looming shootout between the Feds and the Sioux at the Roundhouse also circulated through the crowd. Among them were Charles Curran, Gregory Benford, Ursula LeGuin, and Stephen Hawking. He'd have loved to invite some of them onto the show. He thought of himself as a guy who wasn't easily intimidated, but that night was a bit too much.

“You okay?” Donna asked him after they'd spoken a few minutes with LeGuin. She'd told him how fortunate he was to have been able to do the crossover to Eden and to have been there when they found Solya. “I envy you,” she added.

•   •   •

W
ALKER
CAME
OVER
to their table and introduced Dolly Proffitt. “You're taking on a major assignment,” April said. “I can't imagine how you'd even start.”

“
You're
the one who got us started,” said Dolly, as she and Walker sat down. “What is she like?”

“Actually, she's very nice.”

“For a gorilla,” added Brad, who couldn't resist himself.

“When you see her,” said April, “say hello for me.”

“Do we know how to do that?”

“The word is
shalay
. Give the second syllable from deep in your throat.” April demonstrated as best she could.

Dolly tried it a couple of times. And laughed.

“No, that's not bad,” said April. “When you hear
her
do it, it'll be easier for you.” She braced her jaw on her fist and smiled. “You know, learning to talk with Solya is probably the most important thing we'll do. I'd love to do it myself, but I've never been that good with languages, and I'd just make a mess of it.”

“I'm looking forward to meeting her,” Dolly said.

Walker studied her for a moment. “One thing to keep in mind: When
you
do
get the communications down, be careful not to let Solya know what the Cupola really is. What its capabilities are. We've been fortunate that they apparently haven't tried to break into the thing. Or tear it down.”

“Do you think they could do that, James?”

Walker passed the question to April. “Don't know,” she said. “We left a door open on one occasion and they took advantage of it to go inside. Other than that, we're not aware of any effort to get in.”

“Does Solya eat our kind of food?” Dolly asked.

“I don't know that either. I had a couple of meals with her. Everything tasted okay. So sure, try taking her something.” April smiled. “Maybe some chocolate.”

“That's all we'd need,” Brad said. “Give her something that makes her sick.”

Walker stood quietly for a moment. Then, without making it clear to whom he was speaking: “Something you can do for me.”

April and Dolly traded glances. Both said, “Okay.”

“Get us a name for them. For the aliens. Please. No more gorillas.”

•   •   •

O
NE
OF
THE
guests took Dolly out onto the dance floor, where they were joined by Brad and Donna. Walker was standing off to one side with April, looking as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. “I hope she can make some progress,” he said. “Though it's going to take a while. I can't imagine how she's going to learn both the spoken and written language in any reasonably short time.”

“Dolly's pretty good, Mr. Chairman. She'll do fine.”

“I hope so.” He looked at his watch. “Getting late.” And finally he came out with it: “I thought I'd go along, too.”

“To the Cupola?”

“To the
cabin
. I'd like very much to meet Solya.”

“That's not a good idea, James. It's just too far. The ground is uneven.”

“The gravity's less over there, April. I don't think there'd be a problem.”

“It's not that much less. And the cabin is four hours away. I doubt the EMTs would be happy walking all that distance to bring you home.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I didn't think you'd care for the idea. But I'd like to be part of this.”

April leaned forward and squeezed his arm. “You
are
part of it, James. As much as any of us.”

•   •   •

B
RAD
ENJOYED
SOCIALIZING
. During the course of the evening, he spent time with the Tribal Council members, introduced Donna to the other members of the team that had been on the Solya mission, with the exception of Jeff McDermott, who hadn't come. He spent time with Boots Coleman and Melissa Sleeman, inviting both onto the show. Melissa asked if he knew that Boots was from the Rez?

Brad had not heard that before. Boots had a military demeanor, but he mixed it with an amiable personality and a sense of humor. Both would make good guests.

•   •   •

M
AX
C
OLLINGWOOD
WAS
an ordinary-looking guy. Average size, nothing remarkable about his features. Had he not known Max's history, Brad would never have guessed the heroic part he'd played in bringing the handful of celebrities into the middle of the Roundhouse standoff. “You were a central part of the operation during the first few months,” Brad said. “You've sort of gone missing. What happened?”

“This is just not my area of interest. I restore warbirds.” Brad understood he was referring to military aircraft. “I told April she could call on me if she needed me. But the reality is I don't have any expertise that would be of help to her.”

“I suspect she'd like to have you back.”

“Well, maybe. Brad, the reality is that I watched Arky die saving us at
the space station. He was first across. And it was a vacuum. Well, you know all that. Anyhow, I've never really been the same since.”

“I understand, Max. If you get a chance, I'd enjoy having you come in and participate as a guest on the show again.”

“Sure,” he said. “I don't know that I'd have anything new to say. But let me know when.” There was something in his tone that suggested Brad should just let it go.

•   •   •

E
VENTUALLY
, W
ALKER
STEPPED
up to the lectern to welcome everyone. He invited all those who had gone off-world to stand. About twenty got to their feet. The chairman read their names while the audience applauded. Then those who'd flown in with Max Collingwood and faced down the guns were recognized, and the response took the roof off. “And I have to mention Walter Asquith, who gave everything he had.” Which produced another standing ovation. “I should also mention,” he said, “that eighteen members of the Sioux security team have accompanied the missions.

“We don't know where the world will be going from here. We can only be sure that history will never forget what has happened on Johnson's Ridge. On the territory of the Spirit Lake Tribe.” He paused and looked out across his audience. “And now, we have one more guest I'd like to introduce.” A door opened on his right. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the United States, Matthew Taylor.”

The president came through the door as the audience rose to its feet and applauded. The band broke out with “Hail to the Chief.” Taylor shook hands with the chairman, waved to his audience, and waited for them to sit back down. “Thank you,” he said. “Makes me wonder why I don't come to Spirit Lake more often.”

He expressed his appreciation to the tribal members, to the people who had traveled off-world from the Roundhouse, and to those who'd stepped in to stop the armed faceoff. “That was my fault.” He paused and
took a deep breath. “Someone else I would especially like to recognize: Max Collingwood, the pilot who delivered these folks to Johnson's Ridge in the nick of time.” More applause. “Max, you here?”

Collingwood was seated on the far side of the room. He rose and waved.

“This should be an interesting week. We'll be doing three missions over the next few days. We'll be going back to Eden, to start an effort to learn the inhabitants' language. Dolliehi Proffitt will be spearheading that effort. Professor Proffitt, are you out there somewhere?” She stood to a round of cheers. “We'll be taking another look at the Maze, and then we'll be heading for the space station. We have no idea where it is, but hopefully we'll have figured it out by the time our team returns. And who would have believed we'd be saying such things. Sending people to a space station or to an underground place, and we have no clue where either is located. Whenever I think about the money we poured into all those rockets down on the Cape, I wonder why we didn't just build a star gate?”

Brad wasn't sure whether he'd expected to get laughs. In any event, the room stayed quiet.