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20. MINNEAPOLIS
It was after midnight before Joh
"The bastards knew about it hours ago," he fumed. "I am sure they did, but they held the a
"What's the matter with them down there?" Garrison asked.
"It's too big for them to handle, Joh
that there is a hell of a squabble going on among the President's men, arguing what should be done, and not being able to get together on it. It's something entirely new, a situation that has never come up before, and there is no precedent. It's not simple; a lot like the energy situation."
"The energy situation's not simple, either."
"Well, hell, Joh
"Yes," said Garrison. "Yes, I guess I do."
The highway was relatively deserted; only occasional ears moving on it. A few of the eating places that dotted the road were still lighted, but the other places of business were dark, the gas stations faint glows with the single light in the office burning, Off to the north, the twinkling glimmer of street lights swaying in the wind marked a suburban housing development off the highway.
We did it right, Garrison told himself, ru
And aside from that, he thought, we kept the news objective. We wrote it as we saw it, we played it responsibly. We shu
The sky was clear. A large, bright moon sailed halfway down the western sky. Here, beyond the glow of the i
Ahead of him the moon was blotted out. A cloud, he thought, staring through the windshield in amazement. A tingle went along his spine, for a cloud was wrong. A cloud would not have dropped from overhead and it would not have moved so quickly and even if it had, it would be fuzzy at the edges, not so black, so sharp, so regular. He took his foot off the accelerator, began gently braking. The darkness that had swallowed the moon was blacking out the stars that gleamed above the horizon straight ahead of him. The car rolled to a stop in the right hand lane. Ahead of him, no more than half a mile ahead of him, the darkness that could not be a cloud came down to sit upon the road.
He opened the door and stepped out to the pavement. Another car came up beside him and stopped. A woman thrust her head out of the right hand window and asked, in a shrill, excited voice, "What is going on? What's that up ahead?"
"I think it's another visitor," said Garrison. "Like the one up
north."
"Oh, my God!" the woman shrilled. "Let's get out of here."
The man behind the wheel said, "Take it easy, Gladys. It may
not be a visitor."
He got out of the car and joined Garrison, who had walked out ahead of the cars, standing in the glare of the headlights. He ranged himself alongside Garrison and stood staring at the thing that loomed on the road ahead.
"How sure are you?" he asked.
"Not entirely," Garrison told him. "It looks like one. It popped
into my mind it could be one of them."
"It's big," said the other man. "I read about the one up north
and saw pictures of it. But I had no idea it could be that big."
It was big. It blocked both the traffic lanes and the grassy median that ran between them. It was black and rectangular and loomed high against the sky. Once having settled, it did not move. It sat there, a lump of blackness.
The woman had gotten out of the car and came up to them.
"Let's turn around and get out of here," she said. "I don't like
it."
"Goddammit, Gladys," said the man, "quit your caterwauling.
There's nothing to be afraid of. That one up north never hurt no one.
"It killed a man. That's what it did."
"After he shot at it. We ain't shooting at it. We're not going to bother it."
It must be a visitor, Garrison told himself. It had the square blockiness that the photos had shown. It was exactly as Kathy had described the one at Lone Pine. Except for its size; he was not intellectually prepared for the sheer, overwhelming size of it.
Two other cars had come up behind them and stopped, the people in them getting out to walk up the road to where the three of them stood. Another car came along, but did not stop. It ran off the road, crossed the median, gained the eastward traffic lanes and went roaring off.
The NASA a
He started walking up the road toward the visitor. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that only one of the others who had been standing with him was following. With only a quick glance at the follower, he could not be sure which one of them it was. Perhaps, he thought, he should slow down and let the other man catch up with him, but decided against it. He did not feel like engaging in the meaningless chit chat that would come from the other, filled with questioning and wonder. Why do you think it landed here? What does it want? What kind of thing is it? ‘Where do you think it's from?
He increased his stride, almost ru
Standing there, with his spread out hand against the warmness of the hide, a sudden chill ran through him, a chill that set his teeth on edge and made his face feel, for a moment, stiff and hard, as if it might be changing into stone. And, even as he felt the chill, his suddenly racing brain launched into a frantic scurry to analyze the chill. Not fear, said the analysis, not terror, not panic, no inclination to burst out screaming, no urge to run, no buckling of the knees—only that terrible coldness which was not the coldness of the body only, but a coldness of the mind, and a coldness of the mind that the mind could not understand.
Slowly he pulled his hand away from the hide and there was no need to pull it, for nothing held it there.
He let his arm drop to his side, but, otherwise, he made no movement and he felt the chill ebb out of him, not going quickly, but draining slowly from him until it was gone, although the memory of how it had been stayed with him.