* * *
Krinkle parked where it looked like his car was a spillover of the junker lot. He got a backpack of his own from the trunk of the car and silently considered whether to bring the jammer or the Fodd inside but decided against that but left the jammer on. Then he and Nerber walked to the marked back door of room fourteen. Wilburps hovered behind Nerber’s back so it looked like he had a backpack over his shoulder too.
“This should be a perfect hiding place. Not the most secure and certainly not fancy but its obscurity and unlikeness are its advantage.”
Krinkle opened the door and left Nerber in the open doorway while he went inside to be sure there were no nasty surprises that might decide him to forfeit the money and move along right away. It was no grungier than he expected and he didn’t intend to use the bed so the condition of the linens wasn’t a concern. He waved the alien inside and made sure the back door locked.
He turned on both the TV and the all-news radio station.
* * *
Regimentator drove back in the other direction along the wide highway. She was looking for small features that she had missed on her first pass. When she got to the major intersection a mile up the road and saw Army trucks forming a funnel to force all vehicles through an inspection check point she felt certain that if Krinkle came far enough to see that he would have turned back. If it was his car she had seen he would have to be somewhere behind her. By this point the backup from the expressway ramps reached all the way back to the intersection where she had had her butt whacked. Everything was grinding to a standstill as invasion mania took over.
This time she spotted the turn-off road and pulled across the road in defiance of on-coming traffic and down it. She followed it through to find that the small road ran by the motel and on into a trailer park and beyond that out onto several different small roads. She was watching for Krinkle’s car but didn’t see it. If he had a secret place here among the trailers that might in itself be useful information.
* * *
With the drapes on the front window closed as they found them, and assured that both doors were locked, Krinkle relaxed just a little bit. Great assurance wasn’t possible since the news reports were mostly about the increasing level of paranoia and the increased amount of consequent searching for something that could be destroyed to make people feel protected. The local reports on Army check points along major highways were especially disturbing. He was saddened but not surprised to hear that so few people who were inconvenienced by such inspections, and in some cases detailed searches, were complaining about them or asking about their constitutionality or practicality.
“Is for me to be okay to ask if no problem would be rising from me making less my ouchness?” Nerber asked.
Krinkle wanted to be as open and welcoming as possible but he didn’t understand what that meant so how should he reply?
Seeing that he hadn’t been understood Nerber pointed to his booted feet, then made faces suggesting distress and pain.
“You want to know if it’s okay to take off your boots?”
Nerber hesitated while he got the silent translation of that. Then he nodded enthusiastically that that was the idea. He was eager for that relief but also happy that they were working out how to communicate.
“Sure. That’s fine.”
As soon as he received that in translation Nerber sat on the side of the bed and pulled off the boots. He leaned back on his elbows and gave that Ormelexian sigh of relief that sounded like “beechens!”
“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s bitchin’,” Krinkle agreed. He tried not to stare but for any human Ormelexian feet were at least remarkable. Astonishing if you wanted the better word.
Nerber shook, wiggled, flexed, and flapped his large, scaly feet. He was so relieved to have those out of the painfully tight boots that he wasn’t paying attention to his host’s reaction. When he got a silent message from his zerpy he suddenly became self-consciously aware of his appendages.
Like a good host Krinkle promptly turned and looked across the room to take the pressure off Nerber and his feet. He suggested, “You should update yourself about what your machine’s learning.”
“Wilburps, for we to hear it, prepare and give status report.”
As the zerpy pulled together the information and formulated it in terms the inhabitant should understand Krinkle did some considering of his own.
He wanted to take photos of Nerber and the zerpy to document that they were real and were here but since things were going well and he might get a chance for more and deeper communication with the alien he feared that even asking what he suspected would be a less than welcomed idea might spoil the atmosphere between them before he could really plumb this visitor’s mind. It also seemed rude to ask since he always hated it when relatives insisted on take snapshots on every occasion even when the loudest body language signals he could send were screaming that he hated to be subjected to that.
With the autofocus digital camera in his bag he could probably take pictures without this Nerber fellow even knowing it was happening. Sneaky but maybe the way to go as long as he wasn’t caught doing it. But there seemed no doubt that since he would consider another person sneaking pictures of him to be rude and objectionable, he would fit in the same category. Better to wait and see if an opportunity would arise that wouldn’t mess up this first time in human history chance to talk about the big stuff with a creature from a real other planet.
Wilburps said, “I am still out of contact with our bosses. It is the on-going problem of the interference from the inhabitant’s jammer as we confirmed when he turned that off to allow me to upload material. Which by the way I will need to do again before too long.”
Krinkle asked, “Can it let us hear what the interference sounds like? So I’m sure it is my system that’s doing it and therefore is likely keeping the Army from finding us to take you away and take you apart in little pieces.”
Krinkle didn’t intend to turn off the jammer until and unless he felt safe without its effects so it was worth sending that message before the alien’s machine made too blatant a request that he do so. Nerber understood the subtle message but, based on the translation, doubted that Wilburps did.
“Making for me to hear the interference, Wilburps.”
Nerber winced when the sounds filled his head.
“Making for me to hear it out in the loudness, Wilburps.”
Now the zerpy transmitted a bouncy bit of country music.
“Yeah, that’s Reba McEntire. One of her biggest hit tunes. Thanks, that’s the proof that the jammer’s working the way it’s supposed to so I can be proud of it.”
Nerber asked hesitantly, “You make for yourself the taking of proud in this?”
“I’m proud of the way I’m using it to give us cover and proud that I guessed it’d be sounds that’d jostle foreign ears. I’m not a big fan but I respect those who are since they don’t try to force it down my... Uh, make me listen to it.”
“But you make me listen to it,” Wilburps said with what certainly sounded like a complaining tone.
“Let’s get this straight, machine. You’re a hazard since you can’t control all of what you do and who you’re letting know about what. This makes you less so. While you’re on a world that by Nerber’s admission you know little about and much of what you thought you knew is wrong, it’s prudent for him and me to restrict your contacts.”
Nerber turned his back to the zerpy and made a gesture of agreement that Krinkle could see but not the device’s sensors and recorders.
* * *
In desperation not to have her morning be a waste of time and by process of elimination, Regimentator had focused on the Byde-Hour Wink Wink Motel as the most likely place for her quarry to be hiding, no matter how unlikely that seemed on a broader scale.
She drove slowly entirely around the long, single-story building since the paved access to the back doors made that possible even if the area behind the rooms wasn’t wide
enough for nose-in parking and there were several signs prohibiting any parking there with threats the police would be called and cars towed.
She muttered like a mantra, “His car has to be here. His car has to be here.” But she couldn’t see it.
Finally she stopped a distance from the motel building and let out a scream of frustration that would have scared anyone who heard it half to death but fortunately no one else did.
She got out and stood by the open car door as she stared at the motel talking to herself. “I know what kind of a place this is and I have my limits. There’s no way I’m even going into that office to demand to know what room he’s in. But he must be here. If he’s doing any of the stuff that most of the ones who come here come here for that is vile and unnatural to the point that he ought to be strung up for that alone, with no chance to make some dumb excuse for doing it.”
She closed the door and paced beside the car. “In a decent hotel or someplace like that I wouldn’t hesitate to listen at doors or pound on them and demand that those inside identify themselves but this is too pervey. Be my luck some loony’d video me with my ear to the doors and put it on the Internet along with my name. Or I’d knock on some door and get pulled inside to be debauched when I’m not in the mood for that. Damnation, George Krinkle! Where are you and what are you doing?”
She got back in and drove slowly up the road that would end at the major highway. “This is my best prospect but I need to get some food to keep me going. I passed a convenience store up the road a way so I’ll stock up so I can keep vigil.”
Chapter 17
Krinkle placed the room’s two chairs facing one another for easy conversation, sat in one and gestured for Nerber to use the other. Nerber did so with Wilburps hovering at shoulder-height beside him.
Nerber watched with interest and a touch of anxiety as the man took a box from his backpack and opened it. Inside was a loose-leaf binder and several small items in individual clear plastic sandwich bags. “Hope you won’t mind but I’ve thought about this happening for a long time so I’ve made myself notes on what I’d like to ask you about. I call this my ‘Welcome, aliens’ package.”
Nerber broke out in loud but clearly forced laughter. “You are making so big the jokes for sure, Mister George. But please to tell me instead about this space we visiting in have come to. There are hidden from being seen places here?”
Both this reaction and the question took Krinkle aback. Had he completely missed a bunch of signals and this wasn’t an intelligent being prepared to have a serious tete-a-tete after all? That the alien was up and moving slowly around the room looking high and low didn’t make things any clearer. Maybe the best thing to do was to call in the Army to take over after all.
Nerber pointed to the closed closet door, mimed turning the knob, and asked, “Is this what? Goes it to another place?”
Okay, play along until he could safely distance himself. “Yeah, that’s a door. The closet’s inside. Nothing in it I’m pretty sure.” But since Nerber continued to look at the door with interest Krinkle stepped over and opened it. Yep, as he expected, an empty and not very deep closet.
To the man’s astonishment Nerber stepped inside, checking the walls out by touch. Then he turned to face out – and pulled the door closed with himself inside.
Krinkle stared, jaw hanging open in surprise and confusion.
Wilburps called, “Is what happening in there, Nerber? Is special to see or be doing? All will want to know for sure.” The zerpy moved up and down a bit outside the closed door as if pacing anxiously in the wrong dimension.
Nerber opened the door and stepped out. He gestured and the zerpy moved inside and slowly revolved to take it all in.
Nerber stepped close and quickly tapped the deactivation code into the zerpy. Wilburps sank to a safe soft landing on the closet floor.
Nerber pulled Wowseyla off his hat and scanned the seemingly inert Wilburps, careful to not touch them together. Only partly satisfied with the readings he got he closed the closet door and looked around the room. Wowseyla hovered by his shoulder.
“What do you need?” Krinkle asked quietly.
“Is maybe they have fixed Wilburps so some soundings he still detects and sends on. Is a how-it-can-be-done on his model. Wanting is covering for his sound-catching sensors.”
“You need to cover his ears? Something to block sounds like our voices from getting to him?”
Nerber listened to the silent translation of that from Wowseyla, then nodded enthusiastic agreement. That was the problem he was looking for a solution to.
After a quick glance to be sure he had put the security chain on the front door, Krinkle pulled the linens off the bed and threw those on the floor. Nerber watched this with interest but without comprehension.
Then Krinkle shifted the mattress around so he could get a better grip on it. He stopped long enough to mime that he would lift that and place it against the closet door.
Nerber got the idea, nodded his agreement to the plan, then helped the man position the stained mattress upright against the closet door – where it sagged, then folded at the middle and started to fall to the floor.
Krinkle, arms up, prevented that movement, using his body to hold the mattress upright and in place. He whispered, “Hold it this way for a minute.”
Nerber stepped beside the man and imitated his position but his doubts about the usefulness of this showed.
Thankful that this was a cheap motel with shabby expendable furnishings Krinkle lifted the box frame on end to move it over to hold the mattress upright and against the door. The headboard was screwed to the wall so it stayed put.
But both of them could see that this would be a less than perfect solution because the inevitable sag of the mattress and the need to angle the box frame in place to keep it upright would defeat their purpose.
“At least it’ll do some good,” Krinkle said.
Nerber said, “Put it back and I show you how.”
So Krinkle put the box frame back into its normal position and turned to see what his visitor had in mind.
Nerber gestured that this would all be okay. Next he grabbed the mattress and lifted it, hefting it a bit as if to test its weight. He punched a fist lightly into it as if testing its firmness, then took a step back and released it as if testing its overall rigidity. Next he stepped away, letting the mattress flop over at the middle, then fall forward to complete a one-eighty flip and land flat on the floor.
He now had Wowseyla’s deploy its virtual keyboard and keyed in code. He held the zerpy at arm’s length and moved it as if scanning the prone mattress.
Krinkle gasped in astonishment as the bedding rose smoothly and flattened itself tightly against the closet door.
“Now we are being able to talk-talk with no hearing from inside there,” Nerber said.
“Will whatever you did to it ruin the mattress? I’m okay with it if it will, but I’ll need to pay for it so we don’t cheat the owner.”
“Will be not harmed when my zerpy makes undone this for-until-I-say-to-stop-only change.”
“I won’t ask how it’s doing that.”
Nerber sat down. “Likely it is that you would not understand my say how it is without much time to be learning our systems any the ways. Tell me of your welcome things and we can talk-talk for good stuff, no? I will in twisting of your kind’s way of saying ‘let my hair off’ to be eased.”
Krinkle hurried back to his chair. “You probably mean let your hair down. Sure, I want us both to be relaxed so we’re confident to talk.”
But to the man’s surprise Nerber meant what he said literally – to the extent that he now removed his hat and then his wig saying, “Okay this is? It will make me feel more better about being as open and as honest as possibly it is for me to be.”
Krinkle stared in spite of himself. Nerber understood that in a similar situation he would have done the same when seeing a foreign type in its true form for the first time.
> Finally Krinkle said, “You betcha. Uh, I’m confused though and I might as well say so upfront. Why don’t you want the other zerpy to know what we say?”
“I do not want Wilburps to see how I make to be this exposing my realness either. Makes it sense to you that on Ormelex we make the playing of for serious games in the how we make dealings with others?”
“Humans do the same thing here on Earth. For better or worse it’s standard practice to play games about important decisions and ideas.”
“Okey-my-dokey then. I make big game playing with the ones who aim to be totally exploitationing of me.”
“The producers of the show you’re a contestant on.”
“Position to the one side on the top of the money! From before I made to apply to be on the show I made plans for what to be doing if I survived this far. I am adapting as I must do, but I have long time in the thinking before this plans in the over-most part. I am not so much the blank recording unit as I maybe let them tell themselves I am.”
“Got it. You’ve let the show’s producers convince themselves that you’re a blank slate that they can manipulate to do whatever will profit them the most but too bad about you. What did you mean by ‘if I survived this far’.”
“Getting here is our experimentation in making a show to be amusement for the masses but the trip of contestants and crew and equipment to here is a bigger and far more important testing of systems. Never before have our kind traveled beyond our planet, let alone our own galaxy. Unless that is some of the much do-not-be-telling-to-the-citizens stuff. This makes for pretty nice big the doubt though since such successes would be stuff to make boastful crowing about, not for hiding from us. Is crowing okay for to say it there?”
“It’s an expression I understand and it fits the context. Your little zerpy translates even better than the big one.”
“And Wowseyla I trust. That is for because they do not know I have it but for adding to that because I know it’s inside how to make things happen and can completely control it.”
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