packed, not softened by so much as a single weed or blade of grass.
A tall, thickset man, about sixty years of age, stands in the center of this barren plot. Wearing bushman’s boots with rolled white socks, khaki shorts that expose knees as rough and hairy as coconuts, and a short-sleeve khaki shirt with epaulets, he looks as though he will soon embark on an expedition to Africa, to search for the fabled elephants’ graveyard.
Eighteen or twenty people have gathered around this man. All appear reluctant to venture into the dead zone where he stands.
As Curtis joins the group, one of the new arrivals explains to another: “That’s old man Neary himself. He’s been up.”
Mr. Neary is talking about Clara, the first cow in space. “She was a good cow, old Clara. She produced a tanker truck of milk with low butterfat content, and she never caused no trouble.”
The concept of troublemaking cows is a new one for Curtis, but he resists the urge to ask what offenses cows are likely to commit when they’re not as amiable as Clara. His mother always said that you’d never learn anything if you couldn’t listen; and Curtis is always in the mood to learn.
“Holsteins as a breed are a stupid bunch,” says Mr. Neary. “That is my opinion. Some would argue Holsteins are as smart as Jerseys or Herefords. Frankly, anyone who’d take that position just don’t know his cows.”
“Alderneys and Galloways are the smartest breeds,” says one of those gathered around the dead zone.
“We could stand here all day arguin’ cow smartness,” says Mr. Neary, “and be no closer to Heaven. Anyway, my Clara wasn’t your typical Holstein, in that she was smart. Not smart like you or me, probably not even as smart as that dog there”—he points at Old Yeller—“but she was the one always led the others from barn to pasture in the mornin’ and back at the end of the day.”
“Lincolnshire reds are smart cows,” says a stocky, pipe-smoking woman whose hair is tied in twin ponytails with yellow ribbons.
Mr. Neary gives this rather formidable lady an impatient look. “Well, these aliens didn’t go huntin’ for no Lincolnshire reds, now did they? They come here and took Clara — and my theory is they knew she was the smartest cow in the field. Anyway, as I was sayin’, this vehicle like whirlin’ liquid metal hovered over my Clara as she was standin’ exactly where I’m standin’ now.”
Most of those around the circle look up at the afternoon sky, some wary, some with a sense of wonder.
A young woman as pale as Clara’s low-butterfat milk says, “Was there any sound? Patterns of harmonic tones?”
“If you mean did me and them play pipe organs at each other like in the movie, no ma’am. The abduction was done in dead silence. This red beam of light come out of the vehicle, like a spotlight, but it was a levitation beam of some type. Clara lifted off the ground in a column of red light, twelve feet in diameter.”
“That is a big levitation beam!” exclaims a long-haired young man in jeans and T-shirt that announces FRODO LIVES.
“The good old girl let out just one startled bleat,” says Mr. Neary, “and then she went up with no protest, turnin’ slowly around, this way and that, end-over-end, like she weighed no more than a feather.” He looks pointedly at the pipe-smoking, ponytailed woman. “Had she been a Lincolnshire red, she’d probably have kicked up a hell of a fuss and choked to death on her own cud.”
After blowing a smoke ring, the woman replies, “It’s next thing to impossible for a ruminant animal to choke on its own cud.”
“Ordinarily, I’d agree,” concedes Mr. Neary, “but when you’re talkin’ a fake-smart breed like Lincolnshire reds, I wouldn’t be surprised by any dumbness they committed.”
Listening, Curtis is learning a great deal about cows, although he can’t say to what purpose.
“Why would they want a cow anyway?” asks the Frodo believer.
“Milk,” suggests the pale young woman. “Perhaps their planet has suffered a partial ecological breakdown entirely from natural causes, a collapse in some segments of the food chain.”
“No, no, they’d be technologically advanced enough to clone their native species,” says a professorial man with a larger pipe than the one the woman smokes, “whatever’s equivalent to a cow on their planet. They’d repopulate their herds that way. They would never introduce an off-planet species.”
“Maybe they’re just hungry for a good cheeseburger,” says a florid-faced man with a can of beer in one hand and a half-finished hot dog in the other.
A few people laugh; however, the pale young woman, who is pretty in a tragic-dying heroine way, takes deep offense and glowers the smile right off the florid man’s face, “If they can travel across the galaxy, they’re an advanced intelligence, which means vegetarians.”
Summoning what socializing skills he possesses, Curtis says, “Or they might use the cow as a host for biologically engineered weapons. They could implant eight or ten embryos in the cow’s body cavity, return her to the meadow, and while the embryos mature into viable specimens, no one would realize what was inside Clara. Then one day, the cow would experience an Ebola-virus type biological meltdown, and out of the disintegrating carcass would come eight or ten insectile-form soldiers, each as big as a German shepherd, which would be a large enough force to wipe out a town of one thousand people in less than twelve hours.”
Everyone stares at Curtis.
He realizes at once that he has strayed from the spirit of the conversation or has violated a protocol of behavior among UFO buffs, but he doesn’t grasp the nature of his offense. Struggling to recover from this faux pas, he says, “Well, okay, maybe they would be reptile form instead of insectile form, in which case they would need sixteen hours to wipe out a town of one thousand, because the reptile form is a less efficient killing machine than the insectile form.”
This refinement of his point fails to win any friends among those gathered in the circle. Their expressions still range between puzzlement and annoyance.
In fact, the pale young woman turns on him with a glower as severe as the one with which she silenced the man holding the hot dog. “Advanced intelligences don’t have our flaws. They don’t destroy their ecologies. They don’t wage war or eat the flesh of animals.” She directs her liquid-nitrogen stare on the pipe smokers. “They do not use tobacco-type products.” She focuses again on Curtis, her eyes so cold that he feels as if he might go into cryogenic suspension if she keeps him in her sights too long. “They have no prejudices based on race or gender, or anything else. They never despoil their bodies with high-fat foods, refined sugar, and caffeine. They don’t lie and cheat, they don’t wage war, as I’ve said, and they certainly don’t incubate giant killer insects inside cows.”
“Well, it’s a big universe,” says Curtis in what he imagines to be a conciliatory tone, “and fortunately most of the worst types I’m talking about haven’t gotten around to this end of it.”
The young woman’s face pales further and her eyes become icier, as if additional refrigeration coils have activated in her head.
“Of course, I’m only speculating,” Curtis quickly adds. “I don’t know for a fact any more than the rest of you.”
Before Curtis can be frozen solid by the snakeless Medusa, Mr. Neary intervenes. “Son, you ought to spend a bunch less time playin’ those violent sci-fi video games. They’ve stuffed your head full of sick nonsense. We’re talkin’ reality here, not those blood-soaked fantasies Hollywood spews out to pollute young minds like yours.”
Those gathered around the dead zone express their agreement, and one of them asks, “Mr. Neary, were you scared when the ETs came back for you?”
“Sir, I was naturally concerned, but not truly scared. That was six months after Clara floated away, which is why we have two contact vigils here each year, on the anniversaries. By the way, some folks say they would come here just for my wife’s homemade cookies, so be sure you try ‘em. Of course, this year, it’s three vigils — this one impromptu because of what’s going on right this minute, over there.” Standing taller, wearing his African-explorer clothes with even greater authority, he points east, past the end of the meadow, toward the land that rises beyond a scattering of trees. “The uproar across the border in Utah, which you and I know has nothin’ whatsoever to do with no drug lords, regardless what the government says.”
Neary’s statement gives rise to expressions of a mutual distrust of the government from many in the growing crowd gathered around the dead zone.
Curtis seizes upon this shared sentiment as a way to redeem himself with these people and to polish his inadequate socializing skills. He steps off the grass onto the barren chalky earth and raises his voice to declare, “Gov’ment! Rule-makin’, power-crazy, know-no thin’ bunch of lily-livered skunks in bald-faced shirts!”
