The Visitors (v1.0)

33. MINNEAPOLIS

The room was closing in on him and that was strange, for it had not closed in before. For the first time since he had lived there—a long two years—he became aware of the room's smallness, its cluttered bareness, its squalidness. He saw the grime upon the windows, the water streaks upon the wall.

He shoved the papers on the desk to one side and stood up, looking out the window to where kids were playing one of those nonsensical, running-and-yelling games that had no significance to anyone but themselves. An old woman, struggling with a grocery bag, was limping down the broken sidewalk. A dog sat lopsided before the stoop of a ramshackle house. The old wreck of a car, its battered fenders drooping disconsolately, stood in its accustomed place beside the curb.

What the hell is the matter with me? Jerry Conklin asked himself. And asking, knew.

It was this visitor business. It had preyed upon him ever since it had happened. He had not, since then, been himself. The worry of it had robbed him of his dedication as a student, had nagged at him almost every waking hour. It would not let him be. It had interfered with his work on his thesis and the thesis was important. He simply had to get the thesis written.

Would it have been better, he wondered, if he had come forward to tell the story of what had happened to the proper authorities? And having gotten rid of it by the telling of it, he might now be shut of it and able to get down to work. Yet, for some reason, he had not been able to do that. He had told himself that he balked against the ridicule and the hidden laughter the story would have brought, although that might not be the only reason. Although he could not imagine what other reason there might be. He had thought that telling it to Barr might be some help, but it hadn't been. The exobiologist, despite the fact that he had listened without laughter, had been no help at all. Nor had the telling of it, even under the circumstances, had the cleansing therapy of a confessional.

And, now, he simply could not tell it. Telling it now, so long after the fact, would lump it with the stories all the kooks were telling about being taken up by the visitors. Telling it now would do no more than link him with the lunatic fringe that had sprung up with the advent of the visitors. Difficult to tell his story before, it was now impossible.

Although, more than likely, he was not through with it yet. At some time, the investigators who had hauled his car away would find a license plate or a motor number and the car would be linked to him. Perhaps, he told himself, they already had found the evidence that would link him to the car. He had done nothing about the car and perhaps he should have, but had not been able to decide what to do. He should have reported its destruction to his insurance company, but what could he have told them? For a time, he had considered reporting it stolen, but had not acted on that impulse. If he had, he probably would find himself in more trouble than he was right now.

He moved away from the window and back to the desk. Sitting down, he pulled the papers in front of him. No matter what, he told himself, he had to get some work done that afternoon. Kathy would be picking him up at six or so and they'd go out to eat.

Kathy, he thought. What the hell would he have done without

her? It had been her strength and steadiness, her loving solicitude

that had carried him through the last few days.

The phone rang and he picked it up.

Kathy said, "Jerry, I'm so sorry. I can't see you tonight. I'm going out of town. Up to Lone Pine again."

"Oh, hell," Jerry said. "I had been sitting here, counting on seeing you. What is it this time?"

"They've found a dead visitor up there. Washington probably will be sending in investigators. We have to have someone up there and Johnny picked on me."

"A dead visitor? V/hat happened?"

"No one knows. It was just found dead. Stuffy Grant found it.

You remember Stuffy. I introduced you to him."

"Yeah, I remember him. Tell me, how would Stuffy know if it was dead or not?"

"It was cold," she said. "No longer warm, but cold. And it wasn't floating. It was resting on the ground."

"And now they're going to rush in and dissect it to find how it works."

"I suppose that's the idea," Kathy said. "It has a gruesome sound to me."

"To me, too, but it's logical."

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know. A day or two, I think. I will see you then."

"I was counting on seeing you tonight."

"So was I. Jerry, I'm awfully sorry. And so disappointed."

"Oh, well, you have a job to do. So have I—the thesis. I'll get some work done on it."

"And, Jerry, something else. Old 101 has been found."

"Yes, don't you remember? I told you. How one of the men from Washington painted a green 101 on that first visitor to land."

"Yes, you did tell me. So it has been found. Where is it?"

"On a farm near a little place in Iowa. Davis Corners. The farmer thinks it planted something in the field and now is guarding it. When he approaches the field, it runs him off."

"V/hat could it have planted?"

"Maybe nothing. That's only what the farmer thinks. Johnny was going to send me down there, then this Lone Pine business came up.

"Why should he have sent you down there? V/hat could you have done?"

"It was just one of Johnny's hunches. He operates by hunch, runs the city desk by hunch. Some of the hunches are good, some of them pay off. Some people might call it a newspaperman's intuition. Actually, it's hunch. Now I have to go. The plane is waiting and Chet is standing here, first on one foot and then the other."

"I'll miss you, Kathy."

"So will I miss you. Get lots of work done while I'm gone."

"I'll try. Thanks for calling, Kathy."

lie hung up the phone and sat idly at the desk. The room Closed in on him again. He saw the grimy windows and the streaks upon the wall.

Old 101, he thought. Somewhere down in Iowa, guarding a field. And why should it be in Iowa? There were no trees in Iowa, or at the best, few trees. Nothing like the trees in Minnesota. The farmer thought it had planted or sowed his field. And what could it have planted? He shook his head, puzzled. The farmer, he told himself, must be mistaken.

He got up from the desk and walked up and down the room, remembering again, with a sharpness that terrified him, those few hours (or few minutes?) he had spent inside the thing that was 101. He saw the luminous discs again, the pale blueness of the light, the strange flickerings. There had been something there, he thought, that he should have understood, some fact or facts that, had he stayed a little longer, he might have been able to perceive.

If he could have stayed a little longer, if he could talk with it again—and stopped himself, damning himself for a fool. For he had never talked with it, never really talked with it. From it he had done no more than gain impressions, the sense of home and the sense of trees. And those impressions, he told himself, bitterly, might not have come from 101 at all. They might have come from some unexpected aberrations in his mind.

He went back to his desk and sat down again, pulling the papers in front of him, picking up his pen. But he could not work. The writing that he'd done no longer was writing, but strange, alien squiggles. He stared at the squiggles, trying to make them out, startled by his not being able to make them out, angry and confused, his mind churning.

Maybe, he told himself, the answer might be there, down on that farm in Iowa. And that, he thought, was sheer insanity. He could go to Iowa, out to the farm, and 101 would chase him off, even as it had chased the farmer. He was dealing in a fantasy and knew it, but knowing it did no good. The fantasy still hung on. The impulse became a certainty—he had to go to Iowa. Although what he'd do once he got there, he had no idea.

He rose from the desk and paced up and down the room, fighting it out with himself. One idea hammered at him, zeroing in on him. He needed an answer and this was the only way that he could think of that might provide an answer. It might turn out to be nothing, but he couldn't pass it up. He had to take a chance. He had to play his hunch. Johnny Garrison was a hunch player, Kathy had said, and at times, his hunches did pay off.

He fought it out half the afternoon and it would not go away. He had to go to Iowa. He had to go to Iowa and he didn't even have a car. But Charlie would let him use his car. If he asked, Charlie would loan the car to him.

Limp and sweating, he lifted the phone and dialed Charlie's number.