Krinkle had watched that. He gave Nerber a questioning look and got a give me a moment here gesture in response.
Nerber took Wowseyla off his hat and touched the spots that brought out the virtual keyboard and view screen. When the mini-zerpy signaled it was ready, he moved it around Wilburps without the devices touching. He looked closely at the report on the view screen and nodded.
“What are you doing?” Krinkle whispered, afraid that even a noise might interfere with something important. “Oh wait, with that turned off there’s no translation so we can’t talk. This could get hard.”
Nerber waved Wowseyla. “Smaller and more powerful model. It translates and does many other jobs for me.”
“Neat. Our devices are getting smaller but able to do more things all the time too.”
“I make to verification that Wilburps is not getting or sending off signals but not telling me about them.”
“Could it do that?”
“It is within the design limits of that class of zerpies, yes. I am specializing of the knowhow of them so I know about that subject. Your jammer is making it all not happen.”
“Am I causing you to be in more danger than you would be in otherwise? I’m trying to use it to protect us.”
Nerber gestured that he was going to test something. He keyed code into Wowseyla, reached in and put a hand on Wilburps, and waited.
After a moment he gave an annoyed shake of his head and then returned the mini-zerpy to its minimum size and put it back on his hat. “I made a testing but for now I am still here, not abled to be taken back to Whizybeam that is what you would call the space ship I came from. It is things up there, not your jammer, that keep that from being happened.”
Krinkle nodded that he understood. He said, “Neat way to hide that in plain sight. It doesn’t look that important and there’s no sneaking about it so we ignore it. Smart.”
Nerber gestured that this was a touchy matter but he had to say something. “Wilburps should not know what I am having just done. We should not mention it.”
“He could pass that information along to others without you or even he knowing it and that could mean trouble for you?”
Nerber nodded that that was the case and that he was relieved that the man understood the situation.
“I’ll be careful what I say,” Krinkle said.
Nerber reached in and finger-tapped the signal on Wilburps that reactivated the device that floated two inches into the air as it turned on.
Did something happen to me, Nerber? I cannot be certain but I seem to have a gap in my awareness.
“Are you functioning properly now?” Nerber asked.
“Self-diagnostic tests identify no problems.”
“Are we ready to move on?” Krinkle asked. “If they can pick up your signals they’re maybe zeroing in on us right now. That might be what affected your device.”
Nerber made a small bow of admiration to the man for fitting that in so neatly as they both made sure the back door by them was closed and got in the front seats.
Krinkle didn’t so much as look sheepishly at the alien device on the back seat as he drove them away.
“What is your current status,” Nerber asked. “To let me hear it report.”
“The dreadful interfering noise is returned as annoying as before. Also the unidentified source from-near-space signals are back. They are as strong and confusing as before. Did we wake a sleeping dragon or something? That was what the make translating program brought up but I can find no explanations.”
“I understand the reference and the answer is that we hope not. I won’t try to explain it all, just take it as a storybook idea,” Krinkle said. “Now to figure out where we can safely hole up for a while. Let me think about this. I never imagined quite this situation so I didn’t plan for it.”
Chapter 16
For a time they drove in silence as Krinkle concentrated on the surroundings, alert for any vehicles on the road or in the air that seemed to be following his car. Nerber sensed the man’s nervousness and assumed the inhabitant had a better idea of the form any threats to them would take and was doing what was needed to avoid those threats.
As they drove through an urban area Krinkle’s expression of grim determination melted into a hard smile but Nerber didn’t notice since he was fascinated by the surroundings as they moved into a non-residential area of railroad yards and an elevated section of an expressway. Wilburps hovered high enough to let it see out the windows on all sides, recording all of this for the home audience to try to make sense of.
Just ahead a bell started to clang and a number of red lights began to blink. A railroad crossing arm that pointed into the air jerked and shook a bit as the motor controlling its position activated and it began to descend. Nerber worried if this meant he had been taken into a trap.
Krinkle called, “Hang on, we’re gonna beat this.” Then he stepped on the gas and wove left and then right to avoid the descending barrier arms on both sides of the four parallel rail tracks. Halfway through that maneuver Nerber realized that the large mass off to his right with the bright light on the front that extended more or less continuously as far as he could see was moving at a steady rate toward them. A loud deep note blast sounded, apparently made by that mass.
But once they were beyond the gate and continuing at a slower pace Krinkle became clearly more relaxed.
As the long freight train traversed the crossing behind them, flickers of light made it clear to Nerber and his zerpy that this was multiple units connected in a line rather than a continuous tube as seemed to be the case when seeing it only head-on.
Krinkle said, “That’s called a freight train. Those boxcars are full of stuff being moved a long way from place to place. For us right now it’s a convenient blocker if anyone’s following us since they can’t come across there until the whole long train has passed and by then we’ll be out of sight so they won’t know where to look to pick up our trail.”
“Somebody is making to hold our trail? Or is that the same like our tail?” Nerber asked.
“I can’t be sure but this takes care of them if there is somebody. It’d be just my luck that Reggie’s back there waiting to move in and screw things up but this makes it her bad luck.”
At that Nerber made a left turn and drove down the narrow access road beside the overhead highway. Two city blocks up there he pulled into a trash-strewn spot where the superstructure of the ascending highway was only a few feet above them. He stopped, turned off the engine, and looked around.
“This is why for to be an okay place?”
“We can sit here while I figure out the best place for us to go. If the Army or anybody else detected your machine’s signals and was narrowing in on us, their radar or whatever they’d use probably can’t detect us here with the highway right above us. That’s certainly true if they were following us from a airplane or even a satellite. It’s wonderful what they can see with something way far up there in the sky. Just relax while I figure this out. If you see anybody though, tell me.”
“This be a long time stay-and-be-safe place?”
“Unfortunately no. I wouldn’t even stop here after dark. Not a nice neighborhood. Hoodlums and junkies desperate for anything to get a few bucks for roam the area then. Not a place to be when you can’t see ‘em coming and get on outta here by making them think you’ll run ‘em down if they try to stop you.”
“Is muchness of confusioning talk-talk for my zerpy to give a translation for but I grasp it means a negation to my question.”
“Sorry, I realize translation’s a problem and then I forget to try to simplify to make it as easy as possible.”
“Hurry on with your weighting of optioning. Is making of sense these words?”
“Weighing our options? Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. At first I thought I could take you to my place where I live alone so you’d be safe there for a long time, barring any unpleasant unexpected consequences of your presence,” Krinkle s
aid.
“Unpleasant unexpected consequences of my presence means what? Am I making to do things in wrongish ways?”
“No, what I’m thinking of is War of the Worlds type stuff and NASA decontamination processes. Uh, there’s a chance that you brought with you germs that could hurt me even though they’re harmless to you. I knew going in that this was a risk but I accepted it for the chance to talk to you but I can’t help worrying about it. I have to weigh the chance that you’re an infection danger to my whole species and my whole planet.”
Nerber sat with an expression of compassionate interest on his face as Wilburps silently filled him on what Krinkle had said and the background information the zerpy had been able to collect to explain the inhabitant’s concerns. Not all the details made sense to the Ormelexian or the zerpy but the basic concerns did – and suggested hazards from visits to other worlds that his kind hadn’t considered until now.
Nerber felt that this matter should be taken into account. He also realized that as the only one of his kind whom he knew for certain had landed on the planet and made any contact with the inhabitants he was possibly the sole potential contagion source for Ormelex so it would make sense for his kind to at least restrict him, if not permanently bar him from returning. Or they could bring him back as a dead hero forever encased in some protective layer so he could be safely exhibited as a distraction. No, on further thought, while the governors needed to consider any returning pioneer as a possible hazard to the whole planet they wouldn’t want the populace to find out they promoted secret explorations without fully developed and ready ways to test if there were hazards on any visited planet and to deal with the dangers if there were.
“Are you all right? You seem sort of spaced out,” Krinkle said as he stared at his passenger.
“What makes for you a worry I am thinking how to make not be a problem so you know it is for factual.”
“I think that means you’re hoping to convince me there’s no danger of that sort. I’d appreciate any assurance about that but I’ve made my move so if you are somehow the end of humanity it’s my bad. For now I have to worry about me leading the Army to you. Not me here and present, me my identity that if either Zippedy or Reggie says too much could send troops looking for me at my usual haunts. That means I have to try to not do what I’d usually do and especially not go where I’d usually go. So my apartment’s out of the question but I need a place where I can keep up with the latest news. Zippedy took his TV with him so that’s no good and the car radio only works sometimes.”
“What we move inside of is called your car, is this right?”
“Yeah. Basic transportation but, now that I think about it, tagged. If they want to find me they’ll have the police and all the snoopers watching for this crate. I’d cover over the license plate but that might attract police attention even when nothing else is getting through to them. Dang, things get complicated in a hurry! I can’t afford to not have wheels but I can hardly afford to have ones they can trace. Even if I rent a car there’s a paper trail that can put them after me before long. I can’t steal a car because I don’t know how to hot wire one. Besides, that would also be a license number to go on a police watch list once it’s reported. Where can we lay low?”
Keeping it low so it wouldn’t be seen from outside, Nerber waved his hand to get Krinkle’s attention, then pointed to Krinkle’s side of the car. The man looked out to find two large men in dirty clothes not far away and looking the car over with interest as they hefted heavy pieces of scrap metal.
Without a word Krinkle started the car. That brought the men toward it as a half-run, brandishing the metal bars.
When the car backed toward them at moderate speed, then swung about a bit to strongly hint the driver intended to run them over, the men hurried to the relative safety of spots close to a support pillar. They hesitated there, torn between trying to get something of value from the car and the possibility of being seriously injured in that attempt.
Krinkle drove out of there without further interference but this convinced him they couldn’t stay in the open much longer.
When he turned onto the street with the railroad crossing, the gates were down as a six-car commuter train went by.
On the other side of the crossing Regimentator stood by her open car door trying to see down the street beyond the train during this moment when she couldn’t continue over there yet. In the spaces between train cars she saw a familiar looking car pull into view and turn onto this street so it would be ahead of her. She clambered back behind her wheel to be ready to go as soon as the crossing gates were up enough to get under them.
“I lost him there for a while and I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s him but it’s the best lead I have. Come on, train, get outta my way. There are ramps onto the expressway a couple of blocks up that way and if he gets onto that before I have a lock on him I’ll lose him again.”
* * *
Two blocks farther along, this street crossed a wider one that the traffic line markings and the timing of the traffic lights indicated was a major turn-off point for traffic trying to reach the expressway ramps four blocks straight ahead. At this time traffic backed up for a full block waiting to get onto the ramps was evident even from this corner so once the light changed Krinkle turned right and went with what would be the reduced flow down the wider road.
He drove for a long block, passing a junker car storage lot on his right. Not much to interest him but Nerber and Wilburps were both fascinated. Spotting a turn-off that wasn’t a through cross street at the end of that lot he turned and went down a narrow, poorly maintained street that led back to the Byde-Hour Wink Wink Motel tucked away behind the barrier of piled up auto bodies. There was a small painted sign for it by the road but that was very faded and lacked any lighting or other eye attracting décor so it was easy to miss.
* * *
When Regimentator got to the intersection with the wider road she hesitated. The traffic straight ahead to get onto the expressway was now backed up for two blocks. She got out and stepped up on the open side of the car doorway to see the traffic up that way from that slightly higher vantage point but couldn’t be sure if the car she suspected might be Krinkle was in that line. She looked off to the right. She strained to see if that could that be him a distance up that way.
The light had changed so she was blocking the traffic but she didn’t much care. Her response to the men in a pickup truck who began to honk their horn in protest was a gesture involving her middle finger without even bothering to look in that direction.
When the truck pulled out and passed her in the other lane she was startled and outraged to get a solid slap on her butt from a wide belt wielded by a burly man who would have preferred to do more but they were in a hurry and this was too public a spot. None of what he had in mind had a sexual aspect.
* * *
Looking things over as he made a slow circuit of the motel and its parking area Krinkle said, “A place like this might be good. Nobody’ll expect to find me here. I’ll rent a room and lock you and your machine in there where you’ll be safe while I come back out and move the car up where it won’t be as easy to spot because it’ll look like it’s part of the junker business.”
That idea evoked clear signs of panic from Nerber who looked around in panic and confusion.
“Uh, look, if you don’t want me to leave you alone in the room to do that, you could stay here in the car while I go in and rent a room but then I can park where I want to and we can both walk back and go inside.”
“That makes me like an idea better to be not alone inside.”
Krinkle thought it was a good sign that he understood Nerber’s concerns. At least to a degree they were on the same page.
* * *
Regimentator sped by the turn-off without noticing it. She was sore in several senses but felt that catching up with her meal ticket was more important than getting immediate revenge on the guys in the truck. Plus, to her ad
ded annoyance, they were out of sight and she hadn’t gotten a good look at them, the truck, and particularly its license plate.
The car that might have been Krinkle’s had been going this way along this road so she needed to see where this road led and what roads it intersected. This had been a frustrating morning and she knew no one would have any sympathy for her so her only satisfaction would come from letting the weirdo lead her to the pictures that would make her big bucks for her trouble.
* * *
Krinkle stood with some cash in hand that he could slip through the small opening in the Plexiglas window of the Byde-Hour Wink Wink Motel office when that was opened from inside. The outer office was as faded as the motel’s sign by the highway. There were two chairs with cracked plastic-covered seats by the wall of the small space and if he looked closely he would have discovered they were screwed to the floor but they were of no concern to him.
The manager in the faded shirt asked laconically, “Need more than an hour?”
“Yes. Uh, does each room have a TV and a radio?”
“Yeah. Pay per view. You want the porn you pay in advance when you rent. Do you want the two hour rate?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How long you want the room for?”
“Till normal check out time tomorrow morning of course.”
“Oh, one of those. Then you need an overnight room.”
“Yes. And I don’t want the porn.”
The manager held up a faded card with the rates in large print.
Krinkle counted out the bills and slid them in when the Manager opened the slot. The man carefully closed the slot again and counted the bills himself.
He took a key off a board below desk level, opened the slot and tossed that out. “Fourteen. On the left outside. Check out’s noon.”
“The rooms seem to have back as well as front doors. Do they both open with the same key?” Krinkle asked.
“Yeah. Special feature many of our guests like.” He promptly turned his attention back to the soaps episode on the small TV inside there with him. Krinkle didn’t care, he had the information he needed.
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