They topped the little hill and looked down the other side at a wide plain. Wild wheat full of dead stalks clustered as if for warmth around the trunks of bushy mesquite trees, the letter's branches gnarled and grooved like the arms of old men.
But the thing that had fallen here wasn't burning. It had struck a section of dry broken slate, and there were no burn marks around it.
Shattuck, his wife, and his son stood staring at it. 'Whatever it is, it don't look dangerous,' he finally decided, setting the safety on his shotgun. He started down the slope.
'Sure is bright,' David observed.
The thing lying amid dry rock and gravel was about the size of Mrs. Shattuck's washing machine. It was roughly spherical but with many smooth, flat surfaces. Many of those surfaces appeared to be inlaid with tiny squares and other geometric shapes that glowed like inlaid lights.
Several long, twisted projections not unlike antennae rose from the top surfaces, and two stuck out from one side. They were the only interruptions in the otherwise uniform shape.
Closer inspection revealed that the tiny, multicolored lights were flush with the various flat surfaces. Crimson and deep purple predominated, though every color of the rainbow was present. Some remained steady and unwinking, white others pulsed light to dark to light again at seemingly random intervals.
Still regarding the object warily, Shattuck circled it once, staring admiringly at the display of brilliant lights. Exclusive of the inlaid many-shaded patterns, the rest of the thing shone brightly with a deep yellow the hue of old butter.
'What do you reckon it's made out of?' he asked his wife.
'It looks like metal, J.W., but it has no shiny surfaces.'
It was true. The material itself, rather than something from within, seemed to emit the light. The slick sides did show a luster and sheen like metal, but the object was at least partly translucent, unlike any metal they had ever seen. Where the two largest projections vanished into the surface they could actually see them continue inside.
It was the intense mosaic of colored shapes-rhombohedrons, triangles, circles, and such-that prevented them from peering deeper into the thing. Cautiously, Mrs. Shattuck moved right up next to the device. Feeling no heat, she reached out a hand and touched it.
'It's not hot,' she announced. 'Looks like metal, but it feels like plastic.' Her gaze went upward momentarily. 'I don't think this fell out of some airliner, David.' She ran her palm over it. 'It's downright cold, in fact.'
Quite unexpectedly, the object emitted a sound. All three took several hurried steps backward. Three muzzles rose in unison.
The drama didn't intensify, however, and they relaxed. Other than the new noises, the object remained sitting immobile, glowing as beautifully as ever. Only now it was softly saying hmm-hmm-hmm, buzz-hmm-buzz . . . tick! Hmm-hmm-, buzz-hmm-buzz . . . tick! . . .
Over and over again.
'It must still be working,' David mused. 'But what is it, and what's it do?'
His father shrugged again. 'Beats me. ' He moved down to the device again and commenced a nose-to- surface inspection.
'What are you looking for, Dad?'
'Something to identify it. Whoever lost this is going to want it back.'
'I know!' the boy said, suddenly aglow with a sense of imminent importance. 'It's a satellite! Maybe a Russian spacecraft that landed in the wrong place.'
'No Old Glory,' his father said. 'No hammer and sickle, either, 'less they're underneath.'
'I don't know,' his wife murmured, her eyes never leaving J.W. 'It doesn't look like a satellite, at least not any kind I ever read about, David-ours or theirs. And even spacecraft that are designed to come down in one piece usually have burn marks or signs of reentry beat into them.
'Look. There's not a streak anywhere on it or on the ground. It sure landed softly.' She pointed to the base of the object. The gravel there was hardly disturbed, and bent grasses were raising their tousled heads through the snow once again. 'Even the snow around it isn't melted. I don't think it so much as bounced.'
'Nothing,' came Shattuck's voice. They both ruined to see him rising, brushing at his pants. 'I can't find anything saying anything, let alone where it's from.; Whoever built this is kind of closemouthed.' He appeared to come to a decision, looked at his son.
'Yes, Dad?'
'Run back to the house and get the pickup, boy. Check out the winch and make sure it isn't froze up.'
'Okay.' The youth took two long strides toward house, skidded to a halt, and looked back. 'What we gonna do with it?' .,
'Well, now,' his father said appraisingly as he studied the fascinating whatever-it-was, 'I'm not sure.' Almost painfully rich colors flashed and blinked at him. 'I don't know that it's good for anything, but it sure is pretty.'
'It sure is that, J.W.,' his wife commented, staring at it. She put an arm around his waist. His went over her shoulder. They stood regarding the glowing thing in the night as David puffed and panted his way toward the ranch garage.
Eventually she looked up at her husband and smiled. 'You know, J.W., I think I've got an interestin' idea . . .'
'Actually, Miss Goldberg,' Joe Chester was saying as the late-model station wagon bounced along the sunny back road, 'I'm convinced that if it did come down intact, it did so in such a place and fashion that we're never going to find it. We've been looking for a month now, and we haven't got a hint as to its whereabouts. Myself, I'm pretty sure it burned up at the last minute on entry.'
'Science,' the older woman told him in a voice buttressed by dedication, 'requires patience even above brains, Major. I'm sorry we're inconveniencing you. Please feel free to go home any time.'
'Oh, that's all right,' Chester replied, a polite if false smile plastered across his face to conceal his irritation. 'No trouble at all.'
Turning away from the backseat, he stared out the front window again at the snow-covered wheat and corn fields they were passing through. He couldn't leave any more than they could, though his reasons were different, if no less compelling. His orders had directed him to accompany and watch over the little expedition for as long as the three scientists found it worthwhile to continue.
He wondered what Charlene was doing today.
A chance glance at his watch told him the date as well as the time. If the three musketeers in the backseat kept this up many more weeks, he would miss spending the holidays with his family. Somehow he had to convince them that further search was absurd.
Before this had started, he'd been more than half-convinced that the suspected UFO was more fictional than real. Failing that, it had certainly burned up, blown up, or otherwise scattered itself undetectably across a wide section of west Texas. Even if it had existed and had come down in one section, this part of the state was crisscrossed with uncountable deep creeks overgrown with cottonwood, live oak, and other thick vegetation. Or it could have fallen into a deep dirty lake.
A thousand people, he was positive, could scour the same territory and have no better luck than the five of them had had. A month of this was more than enough.
He was sick of the whole business-sick of small-town motels, sick of lonely beds, and sick of the scientists' subtle but certain air of condescension toward him. He was even getting sick of real country cooking, a sure sign it was time to quit and go home.
They still had some time left before the holidays. He resigned himself to continuing the hunt a while longer.
The day wore on, and they followed the by now monotonous procedure of interviewing farmer after farmer. If even one had seen something strange, anything out of the ordinary, he would have understood the scientists' insistence on going on.
But none of the puzzled men and women they talked with had noticed anything out of the ordinary. That was hardly surprising, considering the terrible storm that had raged that night. Everyone had sensibly been inside in bed or stretched out in front of a roaring fire.
