Far-out Show (9781465735829) (20 page)

Krinkle pointed to the mattress against the
closet. “Obviously you have some powers we don’t even begin to
understand that could affect us.”

“Small and local effects, yes. But stiffening
your lie-on-them-to-sleeps hardly makes the few of us in your solar
system instantly your masters. We are advanced enough to have
detected signals from here very far from our world but not good
enough for us to have correctly interpreted those. The ones who
talk-talk on what they say are your news reports make it a
clearness that your leaders are rushing to destroy us first, then
wonder what message we maybe wanted to deliver to your kind. For to
be straight out honestly talk-talking, most on Ormelex are violent
and little-thinking. They will always want to kill visitors rather
than learn from them.”

“Sad to say but that’s ditto for humans. The
masses get scared and, being not too smart on average, panic.”

“And the masses run things by pressuring the
official leaders, who then make agreeing to whatever the loudest
factions are shoutening for. What it takes to stay in favor.”

“Apparently supposed leadership is sadly much
the same on both our worlds.”

“So you and me, baby, we’re having
unusualness because we are making friendshipness to one another, is
true no?”

“Baby?”

“Is of giving the offense that? The zerpy’s
build their vocabulary by analyzing the talk-talk detected in what
they decipher are your for-amusing-the masses signals. They pick up
bits to use that we know may be only by a few used but if the same
is detected regularly it is tried for having a fit.”

“Gotcha. No offense taken but it did make me
wonder where it came from. Now I know. The verbal quirks of songs
played a lot on the radio or bits of dialog from TV shows aired a
lot in repeats get googled into seeming importance.”

“
Gloogled?
”

“It’s
googled
and it’s nothing for you
to concern yourself about. You have bigger thoughts to think. How
about this one? How do you see yourself in coming here?”

Nerber frowned in a way that might mean he
was having trouble understanding the silent translation of that or
that he was giving it deep thought before answering. Or maybe that
Ormelexians sometimes have gas pains.

“I can try to rephrase that if I’m asking it
poorly.”

“My grasp is that it makes the bigness of
sense to me and I am ponderance making about how to answer.”

“If I’m overstepping with that I apologize
and we can forget I asked it.”

“Not a to be desired change. To the large
pointed part it goes and opens for me the way to say to another
what is truth-most in my innards. My bigness most wishing is to
come here as an ambassador of peaceful working together for the
bestness of both our planets and species. Fame and fortune at home
were nice attracting to do this things and not whats I would reject
if I am the winning contestant but they are only in lesser of
important stuff place to making first contact between our worlds be
for goodness, not for see how to use and defeat the others
purposing. Makes that of any sense to be?”

“Yeah, I think I understand. I admire you -
both for your good intentions and for your honesty in revealing
your underlying agenda.”

Nerber indicated the loose-leaf binder. “What
things are in your notes to talk about with one from another planet
if you were to ever be meeting one? If you made those over a long
time they should be trimmed to the topics you value as most
important or interesting to know. At least-most it will of interest
to me be to see how your core topics or questioning fit with
mine.”

“There’s a long list but most of those are
details, the things we do and you don’t and the reverse. The exact
ways we each do the things we both do.”

“Give Wowseyla a pause to sort through...
Okey-my-dokey, I seem to have a comprehensiveness of what you said.
What are the biggies though. Is an okay to use as a word,
biggies
?”

“Yeah, it fits the context nicely. What are
the big picture topics or questions?” He glanced over a page of his
typed notes. “Three topics that may overlap to some degree are near
the top of my list. First, religion. What do your kind think
happens to you when you die? And what ideas do your kind have about
the origin and development of the whole universe? Oh, and do you
have a concept like evolution. And if so what do you personally
think about that topic?” He looked up to find Nerber with his eyes
closed and frowning in concentration.

“Oh, sorry. Maybe I should only ask about one
topic at a time. I don’t want to overload your or the zerpy’s
circuits.”

“Not a problem is it being. It does take some
processing for Wowseyla to decipher some of your terms and find
references among what is in the background to fill me in on your
meaning and maybe understanding of the subjects.”

“Too bad you can’t surf the Internet, there’s
tons of information available on there.”

“Our zerpies have been doing that since we
arrived near your planet. They work fast but need direction to sort
among the many, many places to find ones that are worth making some
reliableness in. Excuse my language but there is muchness of
crilmentzee
on there so becoming misguided is too much
easy.”

“Agreed. Take your time. A pondered reply
will always be more satisfactory because better thought through.
I’ve thought about my questions for years now.”

* * *

Penelope Regimentator was always determined
but never more so than when she had actual evidence to support her
suspicions that she was close to a pay-off. The combination of
Krinkle’s weird outfit, the way he acted sneaky and suspicious at
that park, and the way he must be going to a lot of trouble to keep
her from finding him all pointed to him keeping company with a
creature she could make big money selling photos of.

This brought her back to the area around the
motel to continue her search for Krinkle and his secret buddy.

Maybe it was the high-test coffee she had
consumed or the change in the light as an area of dark clouds
rapidly approached, or that she was jostled by a pothole that only
looked obvious after she drove over it but there was Krinkle’s car
off to the side. She concluded that he parked it there away from
the building just to confuse and annoy her but she always assumed
she was the center of everyone else’s universe.

She stopped beside his car and got out. It
was rapidly getting dark and the wind was picking up. There would
soon be a storm so she wanted her car only a step away.

Finding his car doors locked as made sense,
she looked in the passenger side windows to see what might give her
clues about his recent activities and anything worth knowing about
for the future.

The two cartons on the back seat were of
interest.

She moved to where she could see those
better. “Those boxes are still in the back.
Foreign origin
detection device
and
jammer
. He must have a lousy memory
if he needs to write the names of things on them. No way to know
what either one does if it really does anything for real.”

She went around the front of the car to look
at things from the driver’s side. She pressed her face close to the
back window on that side. “The foreign detection thing seems to be
on anyway. No way to know about what he calls the jammer. The dial
on the detector thing moves around a bit so there must be a battery
in it. It seems to give a higher reading when I get in close and to
react less when I step back. No way to know what that means but
it’s probably not a car alarm system since I’m close and even tried
all four doors and no siren went off. Maybe it’d be good if one did
‘cause that might bring him out into the open to see what’s going
on and I’d have him. Would I stand outside and argue with him or
slip inside behind his back and lock him out until I had lots of
good pictures of whatever the alien thing is? Best to decide that
on the run. The best advice I ever gave myself was, ‘Always stay
ready to take advantage of anyone at anytime’.”

Suddenly she took two steps back and reached
up to rub her face where it had been against the car window. But
she stopped that move before her hand touched her face. She
hurriedly fumbled a tissue from a packet from her pocket and rubbed
her face vigorously with it. “Maybe that thing’s some kind of a
radiation or infection detection system. Maybe the wiggle of the
dial means getting close contaminates you. I might be dealing with
an alien monster as well as a hopeless dweeb so I had better not
take any chances.” She threw the tissue on the ground – then
stepped on it since she wasn’t looking at her feet and it stuck to
the sole of her shoe.

That interruption, plus a few scattered big
drops of rain hitting the cars, prompted her to look around.

What she was glad to notice while they were
still at a distance even if looking this way were too men, a big
one and a small one, walking slowly by the motel looking everything
over. “Car thief alert,” she muttered to herself. “Type cast and
conspicuous as can be. And not to be messed with if it’s possible
to avoid them. Hell, are those the ones from that pickup truck
coming looking to give me more trouble? Can’t be sure but that’s
even more reason not to tangle in close with them.”

She ran around and jumped into her car as the
whole area was suddenly engulfed in a torrent of rain. It came
fast, it came down hard, and it made it almost impossible to see
more than a few feet ahead.

So she sat and waited. And noticed the tissue
stuck to the bottom of her shoe but now sodden from the rain. She
used a pencil from down between the front seats to remove that but
couldn’t figure out what to do with it once it was removed.

* * *

Inside the motel room the conversation had
stopped as Nerber’s fears soared at the sudden strange noise
outside.

“Let me check but that just sounds like a
rain storm. It’s nothing for you to be afraid of,” Krinkle said as
he hurried over and peeked out between the drapes without opening
them. He waved Nerber over to take a look, still careful not to let
themselves be seen from outside.

That was general prudence and at this moment
special prudence since the two men Regimentator had spotted stood
nearby on the covered walkway outside the rooms just out of easy
view from this window. They were looking out, watching the rain
come down so they didn’t see the slight movement of the drapes of
room fourteen. Whether they would have noticed if those drapes were
opened fully while they were nearby we will never know.

“That is water that falls from out of
nowhere?”

“It’s water but we understand how it cycles.
It evaporates at some spots and travels in the air as single
molecules. At some other spot because the air gets cooler those
single molecules come together and form drops that are too heavy to
stay in the air so they come down as rain like that. It’s not
usually as heavy as that but a storm like this will move on and be
over soon. Then the evaporation part begins again. Don’t you have
rain on Ormelex?”

“Truly we do not. At least not that they tell
us about. Certainly not at our cities where I would have seen
it.”

“See, its slackening off already. It’ll stop
raining here in only a few minutes. Storms can be like that. Start
fast and end fast.” Krinkle went back to his chair. Krinkle
somewhat reluctantly went back to his.

“You were saying you find the idea of
evolution as I’ve explained the theory to you preposterous.”

“It has no fitting in with our other official
ideas.”

“But you’ve explained that your kind have no
concept of gods or other powers to account for creation.”

“This is why we call us conservatory. We
administer to us what you say should be called as drugs to make
happen that they dumb us down so we get not bothered by questions
that do not be straight out explained by themselves. That is the
conservatory principle of my kind. We proudly of ourselves for that
are.”

“It’s fascinating how different groups face
the same questions and come up with different answers. Are you
willing to talk about some more topics?

“I am for proposing the next ones if okay
is.”

“That’s fine. Give and take is a great way to
proceed.”

“What are the things that are all around and
seem to be having like they are a little alive but do not
move?”

“They’re called plants. They are full life
forms but they do things very differently than animals like my
species are.”

“So they eat things?”

“No, they get their energy from light or from
certain chemical reactions. The rest of us are totally dependent on
them. All the animals must eat plants to get the energy we need to
function since we can’t get it from non-living sources. Ours is a
‘plants make food, plants become food’ system. That brings me to a
major question – what do you eat?”

“We sit in the light... Oh. We sit in the sun
and feel us filled up with energy. This...”

“That must mean you’re photosynthetic like
the plants on our planet. Except that they’re mostly green because
the most common chemical processes for them to do that involve
materials that appear green to us. You’re not green so you must use
a different process.”

“What looks like what your kind call green? I
may know but should verify.”

Krinkle thought for a moment, looking around
the room, then realized that the answer was at his finger tips. He
pointed to areas of several shades of green on his motley clothing.
“Here, here, here. Those are different shades of green. Some
are...”

Nerber nodded his head slowly. “We are green.
We maybe do the stuff you said.”

Krinkle let his doubts show as he gestured
toward Nerber’s head, feet, and hands, his only exposed skin
parts.