Aliens for Neighbors

by Clifford D. Simak

  It took me longer than I had intended, for I had to tell my story and they asked a lot of questions and made a lot of jokes and they wouldn't let me buy, but kept them set up for me.

  When I went out, I had some trouble spotting Betsy and then I had to set a course to reach her. It took a little time, but after tacking back and forth before the wind, I finally got close enough in passing to reach out and grab her.

  I had trouble getting in because the door didn't work the way it should, and when I got in, I couldn't find the key. When I found it, I dropped it on the floor, and when I reached down to get it, I fell flat upon the seat. It was so comfortable there that I decided it was foolish to get up. I'd just spend the night there.

  While I was lying there, Betsy's engine started and I chuckled.

  Betsy was disgusted and was going home without me. That's the kind of car she was. Just like a wife'd act.

  She backed out and made a turn and headed for the road. At the road, she stopped and looked for other cars, then went out on the highway, heading straight for home.

  I wasn't worried any. I knew I could trust Betsy. We'd been through a lot together and she was intelligent, although I couldn't remember she'd ever gone home all by herself before.

  I lay there and thought about it and the wonder of it was, I told myself, that it hadn't happened long before.

  A man is as close to no machine as he is to his car. A man gets to understand his car and his car gets to understand him and after a time a real affection must grow up between them. So it seemed absolutely natural to me that the day had to come when a car could be trusted just the way a horse or dog is, and that a good car should be as loyal and faithful as any dog or horse.

  I lay there feeling happy and Betsy went head high down the road and turned in at the driveway.

  But we had no more than stopped when there was a squeal of brakes and I heard a car door open and someone jump out on the gravel.

  I tried to get up, but I was a bit slow about it and someone jerked the door open and reached in and grabbed me by the collar and hauled me out.

  The man wore the uniform of a state trooper and there was another trooper just a little way away and the police car there with its red light flashing. I wondered why I hadn't noticed it had been following us and then remembered I'd been lying down.

  "Who was driving that car?" barked the cop who holding me.

  Before I could answer, the other cop looked inside Betsy and jumped back about a dozen feet.

  "Slade!" he yelled. "There's a skunk in there!"

  "Don't tell me", said Slade, "that the skunk was drivin'."

  And the other one said, "At least the skunk is sober."

  "You leave that skunk alone!" I told them. "He's a friend o mine. He isn't bothering no one."

  I gave a jerk and Slade's hand slipped from my collar. I lunged for Betsy. My chest hit the seat and I grabbed the steering post and tried to pull myself inside.

  Betsy started up with a sudden roar and her wheels spun gravel that hit the police car like machine-gun fire. She lurched forward and crashed through the picket fence, curving into the road. She smashed into the lilac thicket and went through it.

  I was brushed off.

  I lay there, all tangled up with the smashed-down lilac and watched Betsy hit the road and keep on going. She done the best she could, I consoled myself. She had tried rescue me and it wasn't her fault that I had failed to hang onto her. Now she had to make a run for it herself. And she seemed to be doing pretty well. She sounded and went like she had the engine off a battleship inside her.

  The two state troopers jumped into their car and took pursuit and I settled down to figure out how to untangle myself from the lilac thicket.

  I finally managed it and went over to the front steps shack and sat down. I got to thinking about the fence, and decided it wasn't worth repairing. I might just as well give up and use what was left of it for kindling.

  And I wondered about Betsy and what might be happening to her, but I wasn't really worried. I was pretty sure she could take care of herself.

  I was right about that, for in a little while the state troopers came back again and parked in the driveway. They saw me sitting on the steps and came over to me.

  "Where's Betsy?" I asked them.

  "Betsy who?" Slade asked.

  "Betsy is the car," I said.

  Slade swore. "Got away. Travelling without lights at a hundred miles an hour. It'll smash into something, sure as hell."

  I shook my head at that. "Not Betsy. She knows all the roads for fifty miles around."

  Slade thought I was being smart. He grabbed me and jerked me to my feet. "You got a lot to explain." He shoved me at the other trooper and the other trooper caught me. "Toss him in the back seat, Ernie, and let's get going."

  Ernie didn't seem to be as sore as Slade. He said: "This way, Pop."

  Once they got me in the car, they didn't want to talk with me. Ernie rode in back with me and Slade drove. We hadn't gone a mile when I dozed off.

  When I woke up, we were just pulling into the parking area in front of the state police barracks. I got out and tried to walk, but one of them got on each side of me and practically dragged me along.

  We went into a sort of office with a desk, some chairs and a bench. A man sat behind the desk.

  "What you got there?" he asked.

  "Damned if I know," said Slade, all burned up. "You won't believe it, Captain."

  Ernie took me over to a chair and sat me down. "I'll get you some coffee, Pop. We want to talk with you. We have to get you sober."

  I thought that was nice of him.

  I drank a lot of coffee and I began to see a little better—things were in straight lines instead of going round in circles—things I could see, that is. It was different when I tried to think.

  Things that had seemed okay before now seemed mighty queer—like Betsy going home all by herself, for instance.

  Finally they took me over to the desk and the captain ask me a lot of questions about who I was and how old I was and where I lived, until eventually we got around to what was on their minds.

  I didn't hold back anything. I told them about the jets and the skunks and the talk I had with the colonel. I told them about the dogs and the friendly skunk and how Betsy had got disgusted with me and gone home by herself.

  "Tell me, Mr. Bayles," said the captain, "are you a mechanic? I know you told me you are a day labourer and work at anything that you can get. But I wonder if you might not tinker around in your spare time, working on your car."

  "Captain," I told him truthfully, "I wouldn't know which end of a wrench to grab hold of."

  "You never worked on Betsy, then?"

  "Just took good care of her."

  "Has anyone else ever worked on her?"

  "I wouldn't let no one lay a hand on her."

  "Then you can't explain how that car could possibly operate by itself?"

  "No, sir. Betsy is a smart car, Captain…"

  "You're sure you weren't driving?"

  "I wasn't driving. I was just taking it easy while Betsy took me home."

  The captain threw down his pencil in disgust. "I give up!" He got up from the desk. "I'm going out and make some more coffee," he said to Slade. "You see what you can do.

  "There's one thing," Ernie said to Slade as the captain left. "The skunk…"

  "What about the skunk?"

  "Skunks don't wave their tails," said Ernie. "Skunks don't purr."

  "This skunk did," Slade said sarcastically. "This was a special skunk. This was a ring-tailed wonder of a skunk. Besides, the skunk hasn't got a thing to do with it. He was just out for a ride."

  "You boys haven't got a little nip?" I asked. I was feeling mighty low.

  "Sure," said Ernie. He went to a locker in one corner of the room and took out a bottle.

  Through the windows, I could see that the east was beginning to brighten. Dawn wasn't far away.

  The telephone ra
ng. Slade picked it up.

  Ernie motioned to me and I walked across to where he stood by the locker. He handed me the bottle.

  "Take it easy, Pop," he advised me. "You don't want to hang one on again."

  I took it easy. About a tumbler and a half, I'd reckon.

  Slade hollered, "Hey!" at us.

  "What's going on?" asked Ernie.

  He took the bottle from me, not by force exactly, but almost.

  "A farmer found the car," said Slade. "It took a shot at his dog."

  "It took a what—a shot at his dog?" Ernie stuttered.

  "That's what the fellow says. Went out to get in the cows. Early. Going fishing and was anxious to get the morning chores done. Found what he thought was an abandoned car at the end of a lane."

  "And the shot?"

  "I'm coming to that. Dog ran up barking. The car shot out a spark—a big spark. It knocked the dog over. He got up and ran. Car shot out another spark. Caught him in the rump. Fellow says the pooch is blistered."

  Slade headed for the door. "Come on, the both of you."

  "We may need you, Pop," said Ernie.

  We ran and piled into the car.

  "Where is this farm?" asked Ernie.

  "Out west of the air base," said Slade.

  The farmer was waiting for us at the barnyard gate. He jumped in when Slade stopped. "The car's still there," he said. "I been watching. It hasn't come out."

  "Any other way it could get out?"

  "Nope. Woods and fields is all. That lane is dead end."

  Slade grunted in satisfaction. He drove down the road and ran the police car across the mouth of the lane, blocking it entirely. "We walk from here," he said.

  "Right around that bend," the farmer told us.

  We walked around the bend and saw it was Betsy, all right. "That's my car," I said.

  "Let's scatter out a bit," said Slade. "It might start shooting at us." He loosened the gun in his holster.

  "Don't you go shooting up my car," I warned him, but he paid me no mind.

  Like he said, we scattered out a bit, the four of us, and went toward the car. It seemed funny that we should be acting that way, as if Betsy was an enemy and we were stalking her.

  She looked the same as ever, just an old beat-up jalopy that had a lot of sense and a lot of loyalty. And I kept thinking about how she always got me places and always got me back.

  Then all at once she charged us. She was headed in the wrong direction and she was backing up, but she charged us just the same.

  She gave a little leap and was running at full speed and going faster every second and I saw Slade pull his gun.

  I jumped out, in the middle of the lane and waved my arms. I didn't trust that Slade. I was afraid that if I couldn't get Betsy stopped, he'd shoot her full of holes.

  But Betsy didn't stop. She kept right on charging us and she was going faster than an old wreck like her had any right to go.

  "Jump, you fool!" shouted Ernie. "She'll run over you!"

  I jumped, but my heart wasn't in the jump. I thought that if things had come to the pass where Betsy'd run me down there wasn't too much left for me to go on living for.

  I stubbed my toe and fell flat on my face, but even while I was falling, I saw Betsy leave the ground as if she was going to leap over me. I knew right away that I'd never been in any danger, that Betsy never had any intention of hitting me at all.

  She sailed right up into the sky, with her wheels still spinning, as if she was backing up a long, steep hill that was invisible.

  I twisted around and sat up and stared at her and she sure was a pretty sight. She was flying just like an airplane. I was downright proud of her.

  Slade stood with his mouth open and his gun hanging at his side. He never even tried to fire it. He probably forgot that he even had a gun in his hand.

  Betsy went up above the treeline and the sun made her sparkle and gleam—I'd polished her only the week before last—and I thought how swell it was she had learned to fly.

  It was then I saw the jet and I tried to yell a warning for Betsy, but my mouth dried up like there was alum in it and the yell wouldn't come out.

  It didn't take more than a second, probably, although it seemed to me that days passed while Betsy hung there and the jet hung there and I knew they would crash.

  Then there were pieces flying all over the sky and the jet was smoking and heading for a cornfield off to the left of us.

  I sat there limp in the middle of the lane and watched the pieces that had been Betsy falling back to earth and I felt sick.

  It was an awful thing to see.

  The pieces came down and you could hear them falling, thudding on the ground, but there was one piece that didn't fall as fast as the others. It just seemed to glide.

  I watched, wondering why it glided while all the other pieces fell and I saw it was a fender and that it seemed to be rocking back and forth, as if it wanted to fall, too, only something held it back.

  It glided down to the ground near the edge of the woods. It landed easy and rocked a little, then tipped over. And when it tipped over, it spilled something out of it. The thing got up and shook itself and trotted straight into the woods. It was the friendly skunk!

  By this time, everyone was running. Ernie was running for the farmhouse to phone the base about the jet and Slade and the farmer were running toward the cornfield, where the jet had ploughed a path in the corn wide enough to haul a barn through.

  I got up and walked off the lane to where I had seen some pieces falling. I found a few of them—a headlight, the lens not even broken, and a wheel, all caved in and twisted, and the radiator ornament. I knew it was no use. No one could ever get Betsy back together.

  I stood there with the radiator ornament in my hand and thought of all the good times Betsy and I had had together—how she'd take me to the tavern and wait until I was ready to go home, and how we'd go fishing and eat a picnic lunch together, and how we'd go up north deer hunting in the fall.

  While I was standing there, Slade and the farmer came down from the cornfield with the pilot walking between them. He was sort of rubber-legged and they were holding him up. He had a glassy look in his eyes and he was babbling a bit.

  When they reached the lane, they let loose of him and he sat down heavily.

  "When the hell," he asked them, "did they start making flying cars?"

  They didn't answer him. Instead, Slade yelled at me, "Hey, Pop! You leave that wreckage alone. Don't touch none of it."

  "I got a right to touch it," I told him. "It's my car."

  "You leave it alone! There's something funny going on here. That junk might tell us what it is if no one monkeys with it."

  So I dropped the radiator ornament and went back to the lane.

  The four of us sat down and waited. The pilot seemed to be all right. He had a cut above one eye and some blood had run down across his face, but that was all that was the matter with him. He asked for a cigarette and Slade gave him one and lit it.

  Down at the end of the lane, we heard Ernie backing the police car out of the way. Pretty soon he came walking up to us. "They'll be here right away." He sat down with us. We didn't say anything about what had happened. I guess we were all afraid to talk.

  In less than fifteen minutes, the air base descended on us.

  First there was an ambulance and they loaded the pilot aboard and left in a lot of dust.

  Behind the ambulance was a fire rig and behind the fire rig was a jeep with the colonel in it. Behind the colonel's jeep were other jeeps and three or four trucks, all loaded with men, and in less time that it takes to tell it, the place was swarming.

  The colonel was red in the face and you could see he was upset. After all, why wouldn't he be? This was the first time a plane had ever collided in mid-air with a car.

  The colonel came tramping up to Slade and he started hollering at Slade and Slade hollered right back at him and I wondered why they were sore at one another, but that was
n't it at all. That was just the way they talked when they got excited.

  All around, there was a lot of running here and there and a lot more hollering, but it didn't last too long. Before the colonel got through yelling back and forth with Slade, the entire area was ringed in with men and the situation was in Air Force hands.

  When the colonel finished talking with Slade, he walked over to me.

  "So it was your car," he said. The way he said it, you'd thought it was my fault.

  "Yes, it was," I told him, "and I'm going to sue you. It was a darn good car."

  The colonel went on looking at me as if I had no right to live then suddenly seemed to recognize me. "Say, wait a minute," he said. "Weren't you in to see me the other day?"

  "I sure was. I told you about my skunks. It was one of them that was in Old Betsy."

  "Hold up there, old-timer," said the colonel. "You lost me. Let's hear that again."

  "Old Betsy was the car," I explained, "and the skunk was her. When your jet crashed into it, he rode a fender down."

  "You mean the skunk—the fender—the…"

  "It just sort of floated down," I finished telling him.

  "Corporal," the colonel said to Slade, "have you further use for this man?"

  "Just drunkenness," said Slade. "Not worth mentioning."

  "I'd like to take him back to the base with me."

  "I'd appreciate it," Slade said in a quivery kind of voice.

  "Come on, then," said the colonel and I followed him to jeep.

  We sat in the back seat and a soldier drove and he didn't waste no time. The colonel and I didn't talk much. We just hung on and hoped that we'd live through it. At least, that's the way I felt.

  Back at the base, the colonel sat down at his desk pointed at a chair for me to sit in. Then he leaned back studied me. I was sure glad I had done nothing wrong, for way he looked at me, I'd just have had to up and confess it if I had.

  "You said some queer things back there," the colonel started. "Now suppose you just rear back comfortable in that chair and tell me all about it, not leaving out a thing."

  So I told him all about it and I went into a lot of detail to explain my viewpoint and he didn't interrupt, but just kept listening. He was the best listener I ever ran across.

  "Let's get a few points down," he said. "You say the car had never operated by itself before?"