Gift From The Stars (3 page)

“I never thought of that,” she said. “The way you talk about it, it sounds like some kind of conspiracy.”

“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope I haven’t been reading too many of those cult conspiracy books.”

“No matter,” she said, her plump face tightening into a look of determination, “we’re going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what.”

“We seem to have run into a brick wall,” Adrian said.

“There are ways around a wall,” she said darkly. “As you said, Mr. Mast, books are my business. Just give me a few hours with this computer, and I’ll find the author for you—or, at least, where we can locate the author.”

“We, Mrs. Farmstead?”

“I told you that I don’t like people who want to keep things from being published,” she said. “I don’t like people who threaten other people, either.”

“I won’t turn down your help,” Adrian said. “But I never intended drawing you into this.”

“I am in, Mr. Mast,” she said, “and unless you forbid me from helping, we’re in this together. But tell me: what is it we’re trying to do?”

“We’re trying to discover where these designs came from and whether there are more of them,” Adrian said. “And then we’re going to build a spaceship and go to the stars.”

“That’s worth taking a few risks for,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to go to the stars.” She turned back to her computer.

That night the Book Nook burned down.

Next morning they traveled stand-by to Phoenix. Adrian paid for the tickets with cash that he had withdrawn from an ATM, but he had to give their real names to the young woman who sold him the tickets and demanded photo id. He had tried to persuade Mrs. Farmstead not to go along, but she was determined.

“Your bookstore has just been burned,” Adrian said. “Somebody doesn’t want us to follow this up.”

They were sitting in the coach section, Mrs. Farmstead in the window seat, Adrian in the seat next to her, leaving the aisle seat empty. They had their heads close together like conspirators.

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Farmstead said. “The building was nearly one hundred years old, and the wiring was almost as old. It was an accident waiting to happen.”

“But right after your telephone call?”

“People have a dangerous tendency to connect events, Mr. Mast—”

“Call me Adrian,” he said.

“All right,” she said, “and you can call me Mrs. Farmstead.” She looked at him over the tops of her glasses and smiled. “Misconnecting events is what’s wrong with UFO fanatics. They get cause and effect all mixed up. Just because two events happen, one following the other or next to the other, doesn’t mean they’re related.
Ad hoc propter_hoc
, it’s called.”

“So you think—?”

“Coincidence,” she said. “That means “happening together.” I’ve spent a lot of time with dictionaries. I like words, Adrian, and I think they need respect.” They were passing over southwest Kansas with its circular green patches below attesting to the existence of central-pivot irrigation. “Now that’s cause and effect, Adrian,” she said, pointing out the window beside her. “Like the book that has sent us off on this adventure. Either those drawings are intended to make otherwise unlikely comments seem more believable—”

“Not that, Mrs. Farmstead,” Adrian said. “I know legitimate designs when I see them.”

“Or, as you suspect, someone has tried to hide a golden acorn on the forest floor.”

“That’s a good image, Mrs. Farmstead. Only”—he hesitated—“this may be dangerous business.” He held up a hand to stop her response. “I know: you think recent events are unrelated, and that there’s no danger from people who don’t want that acorn found. You may be right. But you may be wrong, and you shouldn’t have to take that chance.”

“At my age, you mean?” she said.

“At any age. You should be home taking care of cleaning up the site of your store, or collecting your insurance.”

“And sitting in my rocking chair?”

“Rebuilding. Restocking. Whatever.”

“I don’t choose to retire and, to tell you the truth, I was getting a little bored with the book business. People don’t buy good books anymore. Hardly any books at all to tell the full story. Maybe the fire was a blessing in disguise. It may have liberated me to do something important, like giving humanity the stars.”

“That’s eloquent, Mrs. Farmstead,” Adrian said.

“Besides, as you said, your area is spaceships. Mine is books. How far do you think you’d have got looking for spaceships?”

He thought about it. “You’re right about that. You found the publisher and his address.”

“But not the author,” Mrs. Farmstead said. “The book must never have been registered with the Copyright Office.”

“But it had a copyright notice.”

“That’s the law. You can copyright it by putting on the notice, but you don’t have to complete the registration. The author may not even have wanted it copyrighted. The publisher may have printed the notice automatically.”

“So,” Adrian said, “what do we do next?”

“We find the publisher and force him to reveal what he knows.”

“The name and location of the author?”

Mrs. Farmstead nodded. “And that’s what we’re going to do. But I’ve got a question for you: if your suspicions are correct, what does it mean?”

“I don’t even like to talk about it—it’s too bizarre.”

“Trust me. I’ve read a lot of bizarre scenarios while I was waiting for customers.”

Adrian looked out the window past Mrs. Farmstead. Time had passed, and they were flying over the mountainous northern corner of New Mexico. “I’ve got a theory,” he said, “that Winterbotham, or whoever he really is, was in a position to intercept a communication of extra-terrestrial origin.”

“From aliens?”

Adrian nodded.

“What kind of communication?”

Adrian shrugged. “Radio. Gravity waves. DNA. Some kind of message, anyway. It may have had some general images or it may have consisted only of the designs. Or Winterbotham may have received or deciphered something that looked vaguely like a spaceship and the engines that powered it, and invented the rest. Only somebody—maybe the people he worked for—didn’t want him to publish it in some normal fashion, and he had to sneak it out in a way that wouldn’t be suspected.”

“That’s bizarre, all right.”

They were silent for a long time, thinking about the bizarreness of their mission.

“The only thing that makes it seem at all plausible,” Adrian said finally, “is where we found it.”

“And your belief in it,” Mrs. Farmstead said.

“There’s that,” Adrian agreed. “That most of all. Trained people recognize authenticity. There’s something about all this that speaks to me.”

“Like books and art,” Mrs. Farmstead said. “Only sometimes even the authorities fail to recognize fakes.”

Adrian nodded. “I didn’t say it was infallible. Sometimes wish-fulfillment gets in the way. But there’s more: the fact that there may be only one copy. The anonymity of the author. The denial of the publisher.”

“The burning of the Book Nook.”

“Even if we call that an accident,” Adrian said. “My theory is that if the designs are real, aliens have sent us the means to reach the stars.”

“Why would they do that, Adrian?”

“That’s the question,” Adrian said. “And there’s no way to get the answer unless we build the spaceship and go visit the aliens. There may be people who don’t want us to go. Or don’t want the world to have the technology implied by those designs. And they’re the ones we need to watch out for.”

By that time they were preparing to land in Phoenix, and there was no more time for speculation.

Joel Simpson lived in a small town in northern Arizona. Adrian had rented a car in Phoenix. He and Mrs. Farmstead had argued about that and the need for Adrian to produce a driver’s license, until Adrian had pointed out that his name had never been associated with the book or Mrs. Farmstead’s store or her telephone inquiries. They had driven north on Highway 17, through deserts and national forests, past Indian reservations, through Flagstaff, and close by the Lowell Observatory where much of the world’s apprehensions about aliens had started with Percival Lowell’s observations of the “canals” on Mars and his speculations about intelligent Martians nourishing their dying planet. Adrian wanted to stop, but Mrs. Farmstead vetoed the idea.

“The fewer marks we leave along the trail, the more difficulty anyone will have trying to follow us,” she said.

They came to a stop, toward evening, in a little town not far from the Grand Canyon. Mrs. Farmstead wanted to make a side trip to see the gorge carved out by the Colorado River over the ages. “I’ve always wanted to see it,” she said. “I never thought I’d be this close, and I may not have another chance.”

Adrian vetoed that notion. “We don’t have time. Maybe in the morning.” But he knew, and she knew, that if their mission were successful they would be leaving in a hurry.

Mrs. Farmstead looked at the town with what Adrian interpreted as dismay. There was a business section two blocks long, with a grocery store, an official building of some kind, two filling stations, one with a café attached, and several vacant storefronts. This was a town that was
being emptied of its citizens like water evaporating from a desert pond. “In a town this size,” she said, “strangers will stick out like weeds in a flower bed. And all we have for an address is a post-office box.”

“We’ll stop at one of the filling stations for gas and ask for a motel or a bed-and-breakfast,” Adrian said. “Say we’re going to head on over to the Grand Canyon in the morning.”

Mrs. Farmstead looked at him with admiration. “Nothing like sticking close to the truth,” she said.

They chose the nearest filling station. A talkative clerk told them about the best bed-and-breakfast this side of Flagstaff, run by his aunt Isabel and if they told her that Sylvester had sent them, she’d be sure to treat them right. “And give him a fee for touting the place,” Mrs. Farmstead told Adrian later. Now she said to the clerk, “Isn’t this the place where that fellow publishes those UFO books?”

The clerk looked blank.

“I’ve read some of them,” Mrs. Farmstead said. “Simpson, I think his name is?”

“Never heard of him,” the clerk said.

His aunt was more helpful. “Simpson? He must be the odd duck who believes in flying saucers. I’ve heard he had something to do with books. He lives the other side of town.”

“How would we find it?” Adrian asked.

Mrs. Farmstead added quickly, “If we wanted to look him up, maybe say ‘hello.’”

“I’d have to draw you a map,” Isabel said. “No house numbers in a town like this.”

Adrian looked from the map to Mrs. Farmstead. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe we’ll drive past there on our way to the Canyon in the morning.” She gave Adrian a nudge.

“We’re sort of night-owls,” he said. “Do you suppose we could have a key to the outside door in case we come in late?”

“A key?” Isabel said. “Nobody locks their doors around here.”

Adrian looked at her with astonishment.

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Farmstead said. “Come on, dear.” They had introduced themselves as mother and son, and now, being maternal and filial respectively, they linked arms and walked out into the narrow street, redolent with the smell of desert wind and cactus. Adrian half-expected to see tumbleweed rolling down the street.

Simpson’s house, if that was what it was, was dark except for a single lighted window, perhaps a study or a bedroom or a living room. The night was black, but they could make out the outline of the building—it
seemed square and low, perhaps adobe or imitation adobe. When the light went out, Mrs. Farmstead reached into her handbag and pulled out a flashlight.

“You are resourceful,” Adrian said.

“A woman living alone has to be prepared for anything,” Mrs. Farmstead said. She led the way to a detached garage.

“We’re not looking for a car, Mrs. Farmstead,” Adrian said.

“A small publisher can’t afford to pay for storage,” Mrs. Farmstead said, “and it makes sense to keep his records where he keeps his stock.”

The side door to the garage was unlocked. Isabel had been right about doors. They entered quietly, and Mrs. Farmstead played her light around the inside. The only trace of an automobile was old oil stains on the concrete floor and a lingering odor of gasoline. But one wall was filled with books on rough shelves; sealed cardboard boxes were stacked against the back wall; on the near side were a gray metal desk, a telephone, a fax machine, and a gray metal filing cabinet.