“A landing strip?” Eric asked. “If it’s a landing strip then maybe they’re going to be…”
“Landing?” Owen interrupted.
“Look over here,” Eric cried as the helicopter banked to the right.
Owen stared out the window, down into the undulating corn, where a different pattern emerged, not a vast landing strip at all, but a huge peace symbol, and the single greeting, “Howdy.”
“Landing field?” Woodruff scoffed.
Owen gave him a lethal stare, but couldn’t rid himself of the mockery he saw in Woodruff’s eyes, the way this pasty-faced kid seemed to be looking at a man who’d wasted his life chasing phantoms. He’d once had the proof in his grasp, he thought angrily, but Russell Keys and his tumor had gone up, quite literally, in smoke. And as for his son? The way he just vanished from a bomb shelter? How could he have followed a trail that disappeared in a beam of light?
Owen stared down at the earth beneath him. Jesse Keys might well be down there somewhere, he thought, but it seemed to him that the way he’d been taken was the most powerful argument so far that whatever the visitors were doing, he didn’t have a chance against them.
“I think your control over this project has ended,” Woodruff said with a smirk.
The rocket lifted from the launch pad, and Jesse Keys held his breath as it rose into the empty blue. Men were headed for the moon. The small screen seemed hardly able to contain the magnitude of the achievement, the sheer awesome nature of what was happening.
Willie slouched on the ratty sofa next to Jesse. “Hey, man, what’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?”
Jesse shrugged, his attention still riveted on the rising rocket.
Willie tapped a small portion of brown powder into a spoon and began to heat it with a match. “I think I saw a flying saucer once.”
Jesse wrapped a belt around his arm. “I’ve been on a flying saucer. More than once. One time I saw my father. He’d been dead for four days.”
Willie sucked the solution through a cotton ball and poured it into the syringe. “Okay, my man.” He handed the syringe to Jesse. “That is really and truly weird.” He slouched back on the sofa, watching dully as the rocket continued upward. “Waste of frigging time and money, going to the moon.” His gaze drifted over to Jesse. “You know what I always admired about you? When we were in ‘ Nam, I mean? That you were the only officer who walked point. Every single mission, you walked point.”
Jesse shrugged, his attention on the few balloons Willie had placed on the table before him. “How’s my credit?”
“Sorry,” Willie said.
“I saved your life, Willie.”
“Two times, man,” Willie said. “Now I’ll save yours. Get straight, Jesse.”
Jesse released a despairing laugh. “I don’t want to get straight.”
“I know what you want. You want to get taken to that other world.” He grinned. “Well, that costs money.”
“I’m good for it.”
Willie shook his head. “No, you ain’t. You’re like every other junkie. That’s why it’s strictly cash and carry.”
Jesse gave up and returned his attention to the television. The rocket had disappeared into the empty blue by then. Well, not exactly empty, he thought. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of felt, his father’s medals inside it. “These were my dad’s,” he said. He handed them to Willie. “They should be worth something, right?” He closed his eyes wearily. “At least one balloon.”
Sarah, a young graduate student, set the canned beans and coffee on the store’s plain wooden counter while Dr. Powell, her boss and lead archeologist, went to see if the telegram had arrived. The other people in the store watched them warily, unused to strangers.
“You’re the people digging in the woods, aren’t you?” someone asked.
Powell looked at the little girl who’d suddenly come over to him. “Yes, we are,” he told her. “And who are you?”
“Wendy.”
“Nice to meet you, Wendy.”
The little girl cocked her head, her large eyes filled with innocent curiosity. “What are you looking for?”
“We’re trying to find out about the Indians who used to live up there,” Powell answered. He glanced at the other people in the store, took in their curious resentment.
“That’s nice,” a man said. “You gonna be getting the hell out of there any time soon?”
Sarah stepped back from the counter and turned to the other people in the store. “Why are you all so hostile to us?” she asked. “We’re not doing anything but digging up a few artifacts from…”
“Maybe some things should be left buried,” the man said.
“Like what?” Powell challenged. “What have we dug up that should have been left buried?”
The man hesitated, as if at the mouth of a tomb. “Word is, a mummy.”
Sam Crawford sat in his father’s study, his attention focused on an article in the
Suddenly the door opened and his father stepped into the room.
“Eric has just started working on the project,” Owen said. “Did he mention that?”
“He might have,” Sam said indifferently.
“I’d hoped it would be you,” Owen said. “But I guess you’ve decided to be a reporter.”
“I won a prize,” Sam said. “Best coverage of an on-campus event.”
Owen was not impressed. “I’m offering you a chance to be a part of history, Sam.”
“I’m not going to live your life over again for you, just so you can make up for your mistakes.”
Owen’s voice turned chilly. “I never made any mistakes.”
“Chasing… little green men your whole life?” Sam replied.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam,” Owen said angrily.
“Evidently no one else does, either,” Sam said. “Because now you’ve lost your job.” He smiled. “I read about it at college. How this guy Tom Clarke fooled you with that crop circle. That’s what did it, right? That’s why you lost your job?”
“I was wrong about the crop circle, but I’m not wrong about this,” Owen said. “Something is about to happen. Maybe next week. Maybe in thirty years… but these visitors are moving toward something.” He walked to the safe, opened it and drew out the artifact. “I found this at a crash site in New Mexico,” he answered. “What crashed… it was nothing man made.” He paused to let what he’d just said sink in. “There were five… beings, in that craft. Three of them were dead. The fourth one died under observation. The fifth one…” He glanced upward. “Everything I’ve done since I found the wreckage has been about trying to understand who they were and what they wanted.” He paused a moment, then added, “That fifth one. The… survivor that was never accounted for. I tracked him down to a small town in Texas. He had formed a bond there with a young woman. The woman’s name was Sally. She was Tom Clarke’s mother. The man who made the phony crop circle in order to destroy me. She had another son, as well. Named Jacob.” He looked at Sam pointedly. “A strange boy. Not much emotion. I looked into this boy’s eyes, Sam, and I saw… all my memories and all my fears… more than that… I saw them add up. Do you understand?”
Sam shook his head.
