Far-out Show (9781465735829) (16 page)

In the back seat Nerber was considering what
had just happened when he noticed that the jammer was moving about
a bit on the seat beside him. He didn’t want to draw attention to
the device while his new friend needed to focus on driving them
safely away from this spot. He did, however, think it prudent to
surreptitiously slip Wowseyla off his hat and use the mini-zerpy to
scan the jammer. The readout was confused and not definitive. He
tried not to let his confusion and distress show as he put the
zerpy back on his hat as sneakily as he could.

Behind them Regimentator shoved Edith away
from her and ran up the street to her own car. She hadn’t gotten
the photos she wanted but she suspected these yokels hadn’t either.
She was still in the game for the big bucks as long as she didn’t
lose Krinkle again.

Edith went back to Adam and asked, “Did you
get them? Do we have the pictures so we can go to the next
step?”

“No, the guy who was sitting on the bench up
there the whole time blocked the view. I took two shots but I’m
sure they only show him acting silly,” Adam replied.

“Darn! All of this trouble for nothing.”

“But not for her,” Adam said as he nodded at
Regimentator in her car moving in this direction now. “She’s still
on the trail and we can’t even follow him.”

“No! If we can’t win the prize this bitch
doesn’t get it after she interfered with us.” Edith boldly stepped
out into the street with a defiant expression to block the car.

Edith was startled and very annoyed when Adam
grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her back onto the
sidewalk.

“Let go of me. What are you doing?” Edith
demanded.

Then Regimentator drove by, accelerating all
the time, hunched over the steering wheel with a look that said she
was not about to let this old lady slow her down. She even turned a
bit so she would have clipped Edith in passing if Adam hadn’t
pulled his mother well clear of the curb.

“I’m saving your life,” is what Adam said as
he released Edith and watched Regimentator disappear down the
street. “She wasn’t going to stop and I don’t want the trouble of
reporting you killed by a hit-and-run driver.”

Edith fumbled out Brownowski’s cell phone and
prepared to dial a number. “What’s the number of the police?”

“Nine one one. But we don’t need them,” Adam
said.

“There’s more than one way to do this. We
can’t stop her from maybe getting pictures she can sell but the
cops can. She tried to kill me so they have to arrest her. How do I
dial the number on this thing? I only had to push a button when you
called earlier but this is more than that.”

Adam held out his hand and his mother put the
phone in it. He pocketed the phone saying, “No, we’re not getting
the police involved in this. That’d make problems for us but not
for her.”

Edith made an emphatic gesture with her
outstretched hand. “Give me that phone, you nerd. I’ll do what
needs doing.”

“No.”

Edith was taken aback by his refusal to do
what she told him since this had only happened a few times in
almost thirty years. Many days she had wished he would be more
independent but at the moment she was annoyed by his response.

Before she could say more now that she
thought about doing so he asked, “What was the license number of
her car?”

“Why should I care? Is this some trivia
game?”

“It’s what the police need to know to
identify the car you want them to pull over. When you can’t give
them that information they’ll fill out a report that you called but
they can’t do anything more because they have no useful information
to go on from the only person who could provide it, you, the person
who called to complain.”

“You have to be wrong. With all the traffic
cameras and all that we hear about on the news they should be able
to figure out which car she’s driving.”

“Did her car make contact with you? Do you
have at least a bruise to show that she actually hit you with her
car, didn’t just pass by while you were pissed at her?”

“Hey, I say she tried to run me down and kill
me. That’s all it takes. That I survived doesn’t mean she didn’t
try.”

“Okay. Were there any other witnesses to this
event?”

“Of course. My son saw what happened. He’ll
back me up.”

“Sorry, giving a police statement’s serious
business.”

“Are you saying you’re mother is lying?”

“Exaggerating, but if she says the car
actually made contact with her I’ll have to call it lying.”

“Some son you are!”

“Right. So don’t depend on me to exaggerate.
Especially don’t depend on me to say that I saw something happen
that I didn’t see happen. Come on, Mom, it’s time to go home and
forget all this. Unless you want to call in the Army to check the
living room or the porch for traces of a space alien while they
take us away to test us and decide we can never be released because
we might be undetectably contaminated.”

“That’s just story nonsense. They’d have to
let us go and soon or I’d complain to people. I know how to do
that.”

“Do you also know where Mimi wandered off
to?” he asked as he looked around.

“Oh shoot, where did that dingbat go?”

Adam held up a hand to signal her to be quiet
so he could listen. After a moment he pointed toward the woods
edging the grassy part of the park. “She in the woods over in that
area calling that she’s lost and needs to be rescued.”

“She’s lost all right,” Edith grumbled.

“But you brought her out here so it’s your
responsibility to get her safely home. We may have to walk too.
We’ll try but I doubt that taxi will come here to pick us up a
second time since you faked him out the last time.”

“Suddenly it’s all my doing. My
responsibility.”

“I’m comfortable with that.” He headed toward
the woods.

* * *

As they drove, slowly now to avoid any
problems with the police, Krinkle glanced at his helper in the seat
beside him. Jones was watching the passing scenery with a little
amused smile but he hadn’t put his ear-buds in as he usually did
when they drove so anything said to the back seat passenger might
bring the young man into the conversation. This was awkward since
Krinkle thought it would be best if Zippedy knew as little as
possible about what was happening and about the stranger.

Concerned that what he didn’t know might be
trouble though, Krinkle decided to risk asking Nerber, “Do you know
the man we passed back there by the park who tried to take some
pictures? Is he someone we should be concerned about telling others
too much for our good?”

Jones made no move to suggest he was
interested in the matter or even registered the question but with
Zippedy it was often hard to be sure what he was aware of or
thinking.

Krinkle turned at the corner. They now drove
at the posted speed limit down Elmworm Street.

Nerber answered the question put to him by
pointing to the house coming up on their right. “That was Adam
Parker. His mother Edith Parker was there at the park too. They
live in the house right here. I visited in there with them.”

Krinkle slowed to look over the house and
property but didn’t stop. To his relief, Jones seemed to pay it no
special attention, the young man just continued to blissfully stare
off into space.

“Did you have good conversations with them?”
Krinkle asked. “Did they learn all about you?”

“We made okey-our-dokey talk-talk but there
was much of stuff I knew not details about for me to be learning
then. In there I first saw your television and learned much from
it.”

Krinkle watched Jones out of the corner of
his eye but saw no sign that the young man found what was said or
how it was said notable. That encouraged Krinkle to keep going with
his questions.

“Did they ask about where you came from?”

“Yes sirree the bobble.”

“What did you tell them?”

“From far away, since that is how it is.”

“What did they say about that? Did that upset
them?”

“They told me there was no special safety
with them. Adam checked if there was someone who could keep a
special visitor safe but Mr. Inter-the-Net said no. It was nicely
for him to be checking that for me anyhowser. That was when I was
making to be moving along.”

“Did you talk to anyone else?” Krinkle
asked.

“Several talk-talks but until Adam not ones
that were making any satisfaction come about. And now you.”

Krinkle watched his helper closely as he
said, “Good. Sit back and try to enjoy the ride. We’ll be at
Zippedy’s house before too long.” The young man gave no indication
that even his own name penetrated his mental fog. At this moment
that was what Krinkle hoped for.

* * *

A bit later they pulled up and stopped
outside the small house where Jones lived with his mother.

Jones became animated as he rolled down his
window then got himself out of the car and closed the door. He
leaned in the window a bit to say to Krinkle, “Have a good day, Mr.
Krinkle. Hope it all works out good for you.” Then he gave a little
wave to Nerber in the back seat and said, “Nice to meet you.
Welcome to planet Earth.” He turned and walked away.

Krinkle shouted, “Can I have a word please,
Zippedy?”

The young man stepped back to the open
window. “Yeah?”

“What do you think you know, Zippedy?”

“That your machine did what it was supposed
to and found you the kind of person you went out looking for,”
Jones said calmly and with no sign he found any of this very
special.

“I won’t ask for the details of what you
think is going on, I’ll only ask who you plan to tell about what
you’ve seen and heard,” Krinkle said.

Jones shrugged. “No reason for me to tell
anybody anything that I know about. ‘Course if my momma asks me
questions I’ll answer her ‘cause I never lie to my momma. But she
don’t usually ask much and don’t wanna be bothered with any bits
and pieces, only the big picture. Is that a problem?”

“I would never suggest you disrespect your
mother but if you say much the police will want to talk to you
again but this time they’re not likely to be so gentle with
you.”

Again Jones shrugged. “I got no need to talk
and don’t know enough to say much anyway. I’m cool. You guys have
an interesting day. If I see you on the TV news I won’t even
mention that I help you out some days.” He walked toward the house
without looking back.

“Is a problem he is?” Nerber asked.

Krinkle drove them away. “I hope not but
anyone who suspects your story could spill the beans and send the
vigilantes looking for us.”

“Uh, having the food items on the floor means
badness?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, spilled beans, I get it. Yeah,
I mean they could tell the authorities and focus the search that’s
underway on us. Uh, you do know the Army’s looking for you,
right?”

“The female of the television told that when
I heard her. That is scaring-me-news that made me think to
hide.”

“You’re really stuck here? There’s no way you
can get back where you came from?”

“Not on my doing it. I tried but could not
make it happen.”

When did you try to make it happen, Nerber. I
have no record of you doing such actions.

“Uh oh.”
A misusing of their words for me.
My meaning was to say that I wished to see if I could make it
happen by making the wishing for it but it did not make it so.
’Make it so’, is that quotationing from some earth source? It
seemed to want to be coming out in that form.

Noticing Krinkle watching him in the
rear-view mirror Nerber said aloud, “I can make messages with my
translate the talk-talk helper and have no sounding. I made the
wrong words and caused confusion for it about what my past actions
maybe did.”

Krinkle gave a little wave to signal that he
sort of understood and wasn’t alarmed by what had just happened
even though he actually was.

Krinkle pulled into a strip mall parking lot
and stopped. “Why don’t you move up to the front seat. It’ll make
it easier for us to talk. Unless you need your translation machine
right beside you for it to work.”

They made that seating change, then Nerber
tested how well it would work by saying in a normal tone, “Give me
a to-hear-it updating, Wilburps.”

“I still cannot make contact because of the
interfering noise. The unidentified source from-near-in-space
signals are gone. It is clearness not if the source is not
signaling or if its messages are for a reason not known not getting
to me. That is my current status. There is a sending problem.”

“Giving to me those details,” Nerber
instructed. He nodded to Krinkle that things were working fine. The
man drove them out of there and continued down the highway.

“My storage area is almost filled though.
Much has happened that I recorded but cannot send along so it has
been backing up. I must soon begin to put new records over the
old,” Wilburps said.

“Does that mean it has to tape over what it
recorded and that older stuff will be lost for good?” Krinkle
asked.

After a short pause while Wilburps translated
and assessed that Nerber answered, “That is positive the meaning.
The new throwing out the old which has no place to be saved.” He
asked the zerpy, “Did you make success of getting for storing the
squabbling... Is a word that? Squabbling? Means has to do with baby
pigeons, whatever those are? Rats with feathering? Is all confusing
much.”

“I record all the happenings in range, then
delete what is decided by the criteria I am programmed with to be
as useless. The fussing-making stuff between the females is all
stored.”

“The home audience would much like that to
watch. Fusses are big favorites of stuff to be amused and
distracted by,” Nerber said. “You certain are that you are not
sending this to the producers while we hear nothing back from
them?”