A Voice in the Night

by Jack McDevitt

  Pardon me, Arnold. I know we’ve never met, but I was wondering if we could go someplace and talk about the Traveler.

  She glanced up. Arnold wasn’t quick enough, got caught staring. And for a single, riveting moment, their eyes swept across each other, not quite connecting. Even from his considerable distance, he felt her power.

  That is, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

  He floated across the street, his hopes rising, seeing for the first time the full possibilities of the situation.

  Arnold on Sixty Minutes: And what were your thoughts, Mister Whitaker, when you first realized you were speaking to a creature from another world?

  The library, and the woman, passed out of sight behind Conway’s house.

  The National Academy of Sciences wishes to present its highest award, the—. He hesitated. What sort of award did they give out, anyway?—the Schroedinger’s Cat Medal to Arnold Whitaker, owner of the Lock ‘n’ Bolt Hardware Store in Fort Moxie, North Dakota.

  The empty lot at the foot of Fifth Street was rutted, and the ruts were covered by thick grass. Arnold slowed down, but he was still moving too fast when he left the unpaved roadway and started up the slope toward the trees. He lost his footing almost immediately on the uneven ground, and sprawled forward. But he suffered no damage other than a skinned knee. He limped the rest of the way into the wind screen.

  The trees closed over him. He crunched through underbrush thick with piles of leaves. Birds sang and fluttered overhead. He pushed his hands into his pockets and walked jauntily through the narrow belt of woodland. The one fear he now had was that the Traveler might somehow be gone. Had second thoughts, perhaps. Or maybe the whole business had resulted from some massive breakdown of physical law which had now healed.

  He wanted to cry out to the Traveler, to shout a greeting into the trees, but he was still too close to the Fort Moxie side of the belt. Wouldn’t do to have people notice that old Arnie was up in the trees talking to himself.

  He found the jogging path, and followed it out to the river, and finally to the black boulder, where he stopped. He listened for several minutes, and heard nothing unusual. “Traveler,” he said, in a conversational tone, “are you here?”

  The wind rose. “Arnold, why do you travel relentlessly around the outer boundary of so lonely a place?”

  The starkness of the question threw him momentarily off balance. “I like to jog,” he said. The river murmured sleepily. “I’m glad you stayed. I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “Neither was I.”

  “But you came back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you go when you’re not here?”

  “The prairie.” A sudden gust rattled the branches. “I love riding the gales through the prairie.”

  “But you must have gone somewhere, right? Grand Forks, maybe? Fargo?”

  “I went to the prairie.”

  Arnold looked off to the west, across the vast pool-table-flat land. It was deadly dull. He wondered whether his visitor might not be too bright. My God, what a disaster that would be. The first visitor from the stars, and it turns out to be a bit slow. “You said something yesterday about rules. Who makes the rules? Is there some sort of government out there?”

  “There’s a civilization.”

  “What kind of civilization?”

  “I don’t know. What kinds are there? Other than where people are civil?” It chuckled.

  “I mean, is it one of those things like in Star Trek, with a lot of member worlds?”

  “I do not know the reference.”

  Arnold surreptitiously slid the sheets from his legal pad out of his sleeve. “Why are you here?” he asked casually.

  “I thought I answered that yesterday.”

  “You said you were a tourist. But what are you interested in? Architecture? Our technology? What?”

  “I’m interested in riding the wind.”

  “Oh.” Arnold felt mildly piqued. “Is that all?”

  “This is such a violent world. It is very enjoyable.”

  “Violent?” He felt a chill rise from somewhere deep down: It sounded so pleased with the idea. “The world, this world, isn’t violent. We haven’t had a crime in Fort Moxie since the 1930s. And, well, we have wars occasionally. But we keep them small.”

  “I’m not talking about people, Arnold. I mean the climate.”

  “The climate?”

  “Yes. Your atmosphere is turbulent. Exciting. For example, in this area, a fifty-mile an hour wind is not at all unusual.”

  “So what?”

  “I come from a place that is composed of glades and meadows and quiet streams. It’s always very still. Very peaceful. Dull. You know what I mean? Not like here.”

  Arnold found a nearby log, and sat down. “What about us?”

  “Who?”

  “Us. People. What’s your connection with us?”

  “I don’t have a connection with you.”

  “You’re only interested in whether it’s raining? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m interested in your thermal currents. In your gusts and gales and storms.”

  Arnold laughed. “Then you don’t care about us?”

  “What’s to care about? No, I like to be driven across the sky. Arnold, you have no idea what a rousing, delicious atmosphere you live in.”

  “Well, I know it gets a little brisk.”

  “You’re a solid, Arnold. You’re safe. If I were caught out on the prairie, or even in here, by a strong gale, I would be scattered beyond recovery.”

  “Then why are you here at all? Why don’t you go someplace safe? Like New York?”

  “If I’d wanted safety, I’d have stayed home.”

  “That’s why you come to the wind screen,” said Arnold. “It’s a refuge for you. Right?”

  “Very good. Yes, it’s comforting to settle in for the night, among these trees.”

  “How did you get here? To Earth, I mean. Did you come in a UFO?”

  “What’s a UFO?”

  “Unidentified flying object. They’ve been seen all over. Some people think they’re interstellar ships.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well? Did you come in one?”

  “Oh, no. Sealed up in a ship, traveling between the stars? No, thank you. I don’t think anyone would go anywhere if they had to travel around like that. Are you sure about these objects?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “If I were you I wouldn’t take those stories too seriously.”

  Arnold consulted his list. “You did stay here last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Reasonably well, thank you.”

  “You do sleep, then?”

  “Of course. Arnold, everyone sleeps. It’s a universal phenomenon.”

  “Do you dream?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Insects murmured. “About what?” A sudden breeze blew his notes out of his hands. He watched the yellow pages sail high into the air, where a sharp draft caught them and sent them out over the river, where they fluttered down into the water. “You did that,” he said.

  “I’d rather just talk idly,” said the Traveler. “I really have no interest in being interviewed.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Arnold.

  “It’s all right.”

  “I mean, I just wanted to be sure I didn’t miss asking you something important.”

  The restlessness in the trees intensified slightly. “I suppose I shouldn’t have started this.”

  The air stirred and began to move. “What’s happening?”

  “Goodby, Arnold.”

  “Please don’t go.” Air currents whispered through the foliage. “Hey. Are you alone? Is anyone with you?” The evening grew still.

  “You are perceptive.”

  Arnold sensed a change in tone. “Did you come here alone?”

  Silence.

  “What happened?”

 
“Listen, please let it go.”

  “Some kind of accident?” After a long moment: “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “When will you go home?”

  “When they realize I haven’t returned. They’ll need to mount a rescue party.”

  “Who will?”

  “Never mind. It’s not easy to explain.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Hard to say. Could be tomorrow. More likely next spring.”

  “How will you know when they’ve come?”

  “They won’t exactly come. But they’ll be able to find me.”

  “The one you lost: was it a mate?”

  Ripples on the river. “The term has connotations that do not apply.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Branches swung. “Walk with me.”

  “Sure. Which way?”

  “Toward the highway. Along the river bank.”

  The air was warm and smelled of berries and mint. “How long will you stay here? In Fort Moxie?”

  “I don’t know. Until I decide to leave.”

  “Just follow the wind, huh?” Arnold grinned, pleased with himself. The river flowed, and the forest moved. The Traveler didn’t say much. It seemed rather to react to the changing colors of the landscape, and to the occasional bursts of high wind out of the north.

  “Look to your left.”

  “What? What is it?” Arnold peered into the open spaces between the trees. There was nothing. Maybe a corner of Mark Hassle’s garage.

  “Butterfly.”

  He had to reprogram, change his perspective. Color fluttered in the sunlight. A monarch. Black and orange, it spread its wings and moved with magnificent unconcern over a honeysuckle.

  “As far as I know, it is unique to Earth.”

  He felt the woodland breathe. A passing breeze lifted the insect. It flew a zigzag course and settled onto a leaf.

  “End of summer,” said Arnold. “It will be too cold soon.”

  They talked about wind currents and the hardware store and Arnold’s telescope. “I envy you,” said the Traveler.

  “Why?”

  “I cannot look through a telescope.”

  Arnold frowned. “You do have eyes?”

  “No. But I am not without vision.” In its turn, the Traveler tried to describe how it felt to ride the wind, to glide silently above the swaying grasslands. “It is best to stay low, near the ground. You get more force there. Higher, in the clouds, everything becomes very still.”

  Occasionally, the Traveler moved off through the trees. It seemed restless, and branches and bushes swayed in its passage. “Is anything wrong?” Arnold asked at last. “Other than the one you lost?

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You move around so much.”

  “It is my nature. I cannot easily remain in one place.”

  The sun was getting close to the horizon. “I’d like to ask a favor,” said Arnold. He’d been hoping the Traveler would give him an opening, say something that would allow him to introduce the possibility of bringing other people out to the wind screen. Arnold had, say, Joe Scarborough in mind. But no opportunity had presented itself, and so he had decided to act directly. “I have a friend who would give almost anything to talk with you.”

  “No.”

  “I’ve told him that you were up here, and he asked to meet you.” Two squirrels dashed across the path and scrabbled up a tree. “It wouldn’t hurt anything. Just a few words, right? Just say hello, the way you did with me.” He felt a surge of desperation. “It isn’t fair, you know. I mean, you started this. You didn’t mind using me just so you could have somebody to talk to. But you don’t care very much what it does to me. I’ve got the biggest secret in the world, and I can’t tell anybody.”

  The Traveler did not respond.

  “It’s easy for you, isn’t it? Not your problem.” The north wind stirred the leaves. “Well, you can sit out here for the rest of the winter as far as I’m concerned. I’m not coming back.”

  He walked heavily away. He thought the Traveler would call him back. A human would. But the jogging path remained utterly silent. He was still walking, and feeling absurd, when he crossed Lev Anderson’s fields and came out behind the Historical Center.

  In a way that he was hard-pressed to define, the sheer unearthly character of the encounters seemed to have dwindled. The prickle along the backbone, the deep fears, the sense of wonder, faded. Despite its ethereal structure, the Traveler possessed a more definite reality than, say, Mrs. Mike Kramer, who came in with her husband and, while he selected a hammer, gabbled on about the church choir’s next project. Or Bill Pepperdine, the high school football coach, who was worried about the low level of ferocity in his offensive line this year.

  Floyd Rickett came in around three, and jabbed his way through several customers taking advantage of Arnold’s annual autumn paint sale.

  “I was out in the wind screen today,” he said, pointedly, talking across Mrs. Mellon, who was trying to make up her mind about the color chart.

  Floyd’s eyes connected with his. They were blue, but like marble rather than seawater. “And—?” asked Arnold, hopefully.

  “This one,” said Mrs. Mellon, pointing to sunset bronze.

  Arnold nodded. “Just be a couple of minutes, Floyd.” He picked up the primaries, three gallons, poured a measure of red into each, and set the first one in the mixer. He activated the device, and returned to Floyd, who was waiting over near the flashlight display. He looked puzzled, and maybe a little scared.

  “What is it?” Arnold asked. “Did you hear anything?”

  “A voice,” said Floyd.

  “Out in the wind screen?”

  “Yes.” Cut to the bottom line. “I was walking out there, thinking about what you’d said. And I heard it. Plain as day. Whispering in the treetops.” The blue eyes peered at him from either side of the long, sharp nose. “I’ll never forget it, Arnold.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It was hard to tell at first. I could make out my name, but there was something else, too.”

  Mike Kramer was holding two of the cans of paint his wife had bought. But he was lingering by the counter, showing signs of interest in the conversation. Arnold didn’t care. “Were you able to understand anything else?”

  “I can tell you what it sounded like.”

  “Like what sounded like?” asked Kramer. He was a big, serious man, his life entirely taken up by his wife and his truck. He was a hauler.

  “It sounded like—.” Floyd dropped his voice, and delivered his next words in a conspiratorial tone: “—The Pack will be back.”

  Arnold’s spirits sagged. “Excuse me, Floyd.” He turned away.

  “The Pack will be back.” Floyd roared with laughter. “Sure enough, that’s what it said.”

  “What what said?” demanded Kramer.

  “Arnold says there’s an invisible thing out in the wind screen that predicts football scores.” Floyd’s grin was as wide as the Red River. “It sounds just like Arnold.”

  Kramer laughed. When it was over, Arnold was left staring out across Bannister Avenue. His cheeks were red. He always thought of himself as an even-tempered man, and it was a fair assessment. On that day, however, he wondered where he might find a good hit man somewhere this side of Fargo.

  At five o’clock, he closed up. And very deliberately ignored his jogging ritual. He changed into casual clothes, got into his car, drove out to the expressway, and turned north toward Canada. The wind screen, on his right, passed quickly and receded. When he reached the border, five miles north of Fort Moxie, it had become an insignificant green feature on the endless prairie.

  He had dinner in Winnipeg and went to a movie. But he kept rerunning his conversations with the Traveler, things said and not said, and wondered what it made of his absence. Was it sorry for the way it had treated him? Did it care that he had not gone back?

  The return ride was lon
g and desolate, sixty-five miles through empty country, broken only by a couple of prairie towns. The night was clear, and a round, luminous moon lit the sky.

  A sense of his own seclusion washed over him. And that seemed strange, because no one in town had more friends than he. People were always inviting him to their homes. And there had never been a Christmas during which he had eaten alone. Birthday cards flowed in like clockwork every year. On Saturday nights, he had the Elks. And he was a regular at Clint’s and the Prairie Schooner. Everybody in Fort Moxie knew and liked Arnold Whitaker. What more could anyone want?

  Arnold, why do you travel relentlessly around the outer boundary of so lonely a place?

  Why, indeed?

  Next day, toward the end of the afternoon, Arnold went through his meagre library, and extracted two Civil War novels, Brice’s History of the Ancient World (which was left over from his single year at UND), and an anthology of mystery fiction. He wrapped them in a supermarket bag, went down the stairs into the store, and helped close out. They had a couple of late customers, Harry Sills, who was looking for a match for a three-eighths inch hex screw; and Walter Koss. Walter seldom bought anything, but he loved to browse through hardware.

  It was consequently later than usual when Arnold changed into his jogging gear. He selected his favorite sweatsuit, white with red trim, an outfit in which he thought he looked particularly athletic. For the second time, he varied from his usual routine by leaving the car in the garage. He walked out onto Bannister and turned west, hauling his bag of books with him.

  She was there. She was back on the center bench, the one directly in front of the temple. This time, he didn’t even notice whether anyone else was on the grounds: He saw no one but her. The worn brief case lay by her side. A book was open in her hands.

  He walked casually along the concrete arc, ostensibly looking toward the Greek columns, but actually watching for some sign that she had noticed him. Her eyes never left the printed page.