Far-out Show (9781465735829) (18 page)

Keeping it low so it wouldn’t be seen from
outside, Nerber waved his hand to get Krinkle’s attention, then
pointed to Krinkle’s side of the car. The man looked out to find
two large men in dirty clothes not far away and looking the car
over with interest as they hefted heavy pieces of scrap metal.

Without a word Krinkle started the car. That
brought the men toward it as a half-run, brandishing the metal
bars.

When the car backed toward them at moderate
speed, then swung about a bit to strongly hint the driver intended
to run them over, the men hurried to the relative safety of spots
close to a support pillar. They hesitated there, torn between
trying to get something of value from the car and the possibility
of being seriously injured in that attempt.

Krinkle drove out of there without further
interference but this convinced him they couldn’t stay in the open
much longer.

When he turned onto the street with the
railroad crossing, the gates were down as a six-car commuter train
went by.

On the other side of the crossing
Regimentator stood by her open car door trying to see down the
street beyond the train during this moment when she couldn’t
continue over there yet. In the spaces between train cars she saw a
familiar looking car pull into view and turn onto this street so it
would be ahead of her. She clambered back behind her wheel to be
ready to go as soon as the crossing gates were up enough to get
under them.

“I lost him there for a while and I’m not a
hundred percent sure that’s him but it’s the best lead I have. Come
on, train, get outta my way. There are ramps onto the expressway a
couple of blocks up that way and if he gets onto that before I have
a lock on him I’ll lose him again.”

* * *

Two blocks farther along, this street crossed
a wider one that the traffic line markings and the timing of the
traffic lights indicated was a major turn-off point for traffic
trying to reach the expressway ramps four blocks straight ahead. At
this time traffic backed up for a full block waiting to get onto
the ramps was evident even from this corner so once the light
changed Krinkle turned right and went with what would be the
reduced flow down the wider road.

He drove for a long block, passing a junker
car storage lot on his right. Not much to interest him but Nerber
and Wilburps were both fascinated. Spotting a turn-off that wasn’t
a through cross street at the end of that lot he turned and went
down a narrow, poorly maintained street that led back to the
Byde-Hour Wink Wink Motel tucked away behind the barrier of piled
up auto bodies. There was a small painted sign for it by the road
but that was very faded and lacked any lighting or other eye
attracting décor so it was easy to miss.

* * *

When Regimentator got to the intersection
with the wider road she hesitated. The traffic straight ahead to
get onto the expressway was now backed up for two blocks. She got
out and stepped up on the open side of the car doorway to see the
traffic up that way from that slightly higher vantage point but
couldn’t be sure if the car she suspected might be Krinkle was in
that line. She looked off to the right. She strained to see if that
could that be him a distance up that way.

The light had changed so she was blocking the
traffic but she didn’t much care. Her response to the men in a
pickup truck who began to honk their horn in protest was a gesture
involving her middle finger without even bothering to look in that
direction.

When the truck pulled out and passed her in
the other lane she was startled and outraged to get a solid slap on
her butt from a wide belt wielded by a burly man who would have
preferred to do more but they were in a hurry and this was too
public a spot. None of what he had in mind had a sexual aspect.

* * *

Looking things over as he made a slow circuit
of the motel and its parking area Krinkle said, “A place like this
might be good. Nobody’ll expect to find me here. I’ll rent a room
and lock you and your machine in there where you’ll be safe while I
come back out and move the car up where it won’t be as easy to spot
because it’ll look like it’s part of the junker business.”

That idea evoked clear signs of panic from
Nerber who looked around in panic and confusion.

“Uh, look, if you don’t want me to leave you
alone in the room to do that, you could stay here in the car while
I go in and rent a room but then I can park where I want to and we
can both walk back and go inside.”

“That makes me like an idea better to be not
alone inside.”

Krinkle thought it was a good sign that he
understood Nerber’s concerns. At least to a degree they were on the
same page.

* * *

Regimentator sped by the turn-off without
noticing it. She was sore in several senses but felt that catching
up with her meal ticket was more important than getting immediate
revenge on the guys in the truck. Plus, to her added annoyance,
they were out of sight and she hadn’t gotten a good look at them,
the truck, and particularly its license plate.

The car that might have been Krinkle’s had
been going this way along this road so she needed to see where this
road led and what roads it intersected. This had been a frustrating
morning and she knew no one would have any sympathy for her so her
only satisfaction would come from letting the weirdo lead her to
the pictures that would make her big bucks for her trouble.

* * *

Krinkle stood with some cash in hand that he
could slip through the small opening in the Plexiglas window of the
Byde-Hour Wink Wink Motel office when that was opened from inside.
The outer office was as faded as the motel’s sign by the highway.
There were two chairs with cracked plastic-covered seats by the
wall of the small space and if he looked closely he would have
discovered they were screwed to the floor but they were of no
concern to him.

The manager in the faded shirt asked
laconically, “Need more than an hour?”

“Yes. Uh, does each room have a TV and a
radio?”

“Yeah. Pay per view. You want the porn you
pay in advance when you rent. Do you want the two hour rate?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How long you want the room for?”

“Till normal check out time tomorrow morning
of course.”

“Oh, one of those. Then you need an overnight
room.”

“Yes. And I don’t want the porn.”

The manager held up a faded card with the
rates in large print.

Krinkle counted out the bills and slid them
in when the Manager opened the slot. The man carefully closed the
slot again and counted the bills himself.

He took a key off a board below desk level,
opened the slot and tossed that out. “Fourteen. On the left
outside. Check out’s noon.”

“The rooms seem to have back as well as front
doors. Do they both open with the same key?” Krinkle asked.

“Yeah. Special feature many of our guests
like.” He promptly turned his attention back to the soaps episode
on the small TV inside there with him. Krinkle didn’t care, he had
the information he needed.

* * *

Krinkle parked where it looked like his car
was a spillover of the junker lot. He got a backpack of his own
from the trunk of the car and silently considered whether to bring
the jammer or the Fodd inside but decided against that but left the
jammer on. Then he and Nerber walked to the marked back door of
room fourteen. Wilburps hovered behind Nerber’s back so it looked
like he had a backpack over his shoulder too.

“This should be a perfect hiding place. Not
the most secure and certainly not fancy but its obscurity and
unlikeness are its advantage.”

Krinkle opened the door and left Nerber in
the open doorway while he went inside to be sure there were no
nasty surprises that might decide him to forfeit the money and move
along right away. It was no grungier than he expected and he didn’t
intend to use the bed so the condition of the linens wasn’t a
concern. He waved the alien inside and made sure the back door
locked.

He turned on both the TV and the all-news
radio station.

* * *

Regimentator drove back in the other
direction along the wide highway. She was looking for small
features that she had missed on her first pass. When she got to the
major intersection a mile up the road and saw Army trucks forming a
funnel to force all vehicles through an inspection check point she
felt certain that if Krinkle came far enough to see that he would
have turned back. If it was his car she had seen he would have to
be somewhere behind her. By this point the backup from the
expressway ramps reached all the way back to the intersection where
she had had her butt whacked. Everything was grinding to a
standstill as invasion mania took over.

This time she spotted the turn-off road and
pulled across the road in defiance of on-coming traffic and down
it. She followed it through to find that the small road ran by the
motel and on into a trailer park and beyond that out onto several
different small roads. She was watching for Krinkle’s car but
didn’t see it. If he had a secret place here among the trailers
that might in itself be useful information.

* * *

With the drapes on the front window closed as
they found them, and assured that both doors were locked, Krinkle
relaxed just a little bit. Great assurance wasn’t possible since
the news reports were mostly about the increasing level of paranoia
and the increased amount of consequent searching for something that
could be destroyed to make people feel protected. The local reports
on Army check points along major highways were especially
disturbing. He was saddened but not surprised to hear that so few
people who were inconvenienced by such inspections, and in some
cases detailed searches, were complaining about them or asking
about their constitutionality or practicality.

“Is for me to be okay to ask if no problem
would be rising from me making less my ouchness?” Nerber asked.

Krinkle wanted to be as open and welcoming as
possible but he didn’t understand what that meant so how should he
reply?

Seeing that he hadn’t been understood Nerber
pointed to his booted feet, then made faces suggesting distress and
pain.

“You want to know if it’s okay to take off
your boots?”

Nerber hesitated while he got the silent
translation of that. Then he nodded enthusiastically that that was
the idea. He was eager for that relief but also happy that they
were working out how to communicate.

“Sure. That’s fine.”

As soon as he received that in translation
Nerber sat on the side of the bed and pulled off the boots. He
leaned back on his elbows and gave that Ormelexian sigh of relief
that sounded like “
beechens
!”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s bitchin’,” Krinkle
agreed. He tried not to stare but for any human Ormelexian feet
were at least remarkable. Astonishing if you wanted the better
word.

Nerber shook, wiggled, flexed, and flapped
his large, scaly feet. He was so relieved to have those out of the
painfully tight boots that he wasn’t paying attention to his host’s
reaction. When he got a silent message from his zerpy he suddenly
became self-consciously aware of his appendages.

Like a good host Krinkle promptly turned and
looked across the room to take the pressure off Nerber and his
feet. He suggested, “You should update yourself about what your
machine’s learning.”

“Wilburps, for we to hear it, prepare and
give status report.”

As the zerpy pulled together the information
and formulated it in terms the inhabitant should understand Krinkle
did some considering of his own.

He wanted to take photos of Nerber and the
zerpy to document that they were real and were here but since
things were going well and he might get a chance for more and
deeper communication with the alien he feared that even asking what
he suspected would be a less than welcomed idea might spoil the
atmosphere between them before he could really plumb this visitor’s
mind. It also seemed rude to ask since he always hated it when
relatives insisted on take snapshots on every occasion even when
the loudest body language signals he could send were screaming that
he hated to be subjected to that.

With the autofocus digital camera in his bag
he could probably take pictures without this Nerber fellow even
knowing it was happening. Sneaky but maybe the way to go as long as
he wasn’t caught doing it. But there seemed no doubt that since he
would consider another person sneaking pictures of him to be rude
and objectionable, he would fit in the same category. Better to
wait and see if an opportunity would arise that wouldn’t mess up
this first time in human history chance to talk about the big stuff
with a creature from a real other planet.

Wilburps said, “I am still out of contact
with our bosses. It is the on-going problem of the interference
from the inhabitant’s jammer as we confirmed when he turned that
off to allow me to upload material. Which by the way I will need to
do again before too long.”

Krinkle asked, “Can it let us hear what the
interference sounds like? So I’m sure it is my system that’s doing
it and therefore is likely keeping the Army from finding us to take
you away and take you apart in little pieces.”

Krinkle didn’t intend to turn off the jammer
until and unless he felt safe without its effects so it was worth
sending that message before the alien’s machine made too blatant a
request that he do so. Nerber understood the subtle message but,
based on the translation, doubted that Wilburps did.

“Making for me to hear the interference,
Wilburps.”

Nerber winced when the sounds filled his
head.

“Making for me to hear it out in the
loudness, Wilburps.”