“Captains Kerry and Robinett are with army intelligence,” Sykes explained helpfully as he took a seat at the head of the small table.
Which made sense. Suttles knew as he sat down. Kerry wasted no time in launching the subject they’d come together to discuss.
“You’re the one who saw the alien?”
“Hey, slow down.” He smiled. She didn’t smile back. “I didn’t say it was an alien.”
“A dead alien.” Robinett studied his agitated fingers. “About three feet tall, looking something like this.” From the neat rectangle of papers piled on the table in front of him he held up an artist’s rendering of the sort Suttles was familiar with from frequent encounters on the evening news. Someone had produced a remarkably accurate rendition of the alien’s head and torso based on the information in Suttles’s official report.
“Pretty good,” he commented. “The nasal ridge is sharper than that, though, and the central eye is the same size as the others.”
Robinett looked at the sketch and surprised Suttles by saying, “I’ll fix it. I did the best I could based on what you told us.” Now Suttles understood the reason for the young captain’s nervous fingers: they were searching for a pen.
“There’s more.” He tried not to sound overly critical. “Minor details. I didn’t say it was an alien,” he reiterated. “He said it was a dead alien.”
“That’s right.” Now Kerry smiled slightly, as though it was expected of her. “The bartender.”
The somber confrontation in the tiny, windowless room put Suttles in mind of the classic sf/horror films of the fifties. All that was needed was for Kerry to lower her voice and declare in ominous tones that “It’s obviously a by-product of the atom bomb.” Completing the scene demanded that she change into the standard duty uniform for brilliant young female scientists of that genre: high heels, with skirt and sweater sufficiently tight to slow the circulation of the blood. He suspected that no such nonsense, either oratorical or sartorial, would be forthcoming from the redoubtable and no-nonsense Captain Kerry. Not was she likely to provide any suggestion of romantic relief.
Times change, he sighed silently.
Already aware that he’d been dropped from the conversational circle, a slightly petulant Sykes rose. “I suppose I’ll leave you three to get on with it.”
Suttles was about to say to his base commander, “You don’t have to leave, sir,” but Kerry responded faster. “Thank you, General.” Was she just a captain, Suttles wondered, or did the fact that she was army intelligence allow her to give orders to a senior officer?
Looking uncomfortable and ill at ease with the entire proceeding, Sykes depaned. Only when the door closed behind him did Robinett speak up again.
“You’re surc it was dead?”
“I’m not even sure it was an alien.” Suttles replied more sharply than he intended. These two weren’t making him feel at ease. “It could’ve been nothing more than a toy or a clever mock-up, a ventriloquist’s dummy. He was a damn good ventriloquist.”
“Sure,” snapped Kerry. “Just your average oilfield-roughneck Edgar Bergen. I’m sorry, but that’s one dual career I’ve yet to encounter.”
Suttles blinked. “How’d you know he was an oilfield worker?”
“We’ve already run the usual preliminary checks.” Robinett looktd apologetic. “Wasn’t difficult. Social security number, unemployment insurance records, workmen’s comp. No bank-account records, though. A true son of the Texas soil.” He sniffed.
Kerry picked up the thread. “Ross Edward Hager: born and raised, Abilene, Texas. Played high-school … these details are incidentai and you can be filled in later.”
Suttles shifted in his seat. “When I put together the report I wondered if anyone would believe me. Why did you? I don’t think I would have.”
“You supplied corroborative proof in the form of the formula for advanced thermos-bottle propellant.” When he wasn’t smiling, Robinett’s expression was difficult to read. “You also had the good sense to place that at the top of your account, and the source of your inspiration near the end. The introduction made your conclusion a lot more palatable. I used to make bottle rockets myself when I was a kid. But they didn’t punch holes in steel roofs and concrete floors. They also had a tendency to come back down.”
“So nobody’s found it yet.” Suttles contemplated the import of this revelation.
“We’ve searched, but we’ve had to be subtle about it. We can’t have legions of reward-seekers searching the vicinity for an ordinary thermos bottle. Someone’s liable to get suspicious and call a reporter.”
“‘U.S. Army will pay one hundred dollars for return of used thermos bottles, possibly dented, to be found in the general vicinity of greater metropolitan El Paso.’” Kerry smiled thinly. ‘fat’s abulletin I don’t think we’ll be putting out anytime soon. We’d love to have it back, of course.”
“What convinced you?” Suttles wanted to know.
“Analysis of powder fragments left behind on the workbench you used to concoct the propellant.” She made a face. “It had been cleaned off since you used it, but we found enough to be conclusive. The results were impressive enough to unsettle people who are normally difficult to excite. More impurtant!y, your results were reproducible.”
“You might be interested to know,” Robinett went on, “that your bartender’s propellant works just as well in small rockets as in thermos bottles.”
“How well?”
Robinett scratched his nose. “We’ll know if and when we can find the small rocket. You might say that we lost track of its tracker. My own hypothesis is that both thermos and rocket got going so fast that they burned up on reentry, but no one else is willing to subscribe to the theory that a motor-pool captain in El Paso has become the first person in history to orbit a thermos bottle.” He turned sharp blue eyes on Suttles. “Yet.”
“Of course, this wonderful material could be terrestrial in origin,” Kerry argued. “If not domestic, then Japanese or European. It’s the source that has us excited.” A hint of real excitement broke through her habitual reserve.
“You walk into a local bar and chat with the bartender, a manual laborer from Texas whose actions in no way betray signs of hidden intelligence. In the course of your visit this otherwise ordinary-looking gentleman displays the abilities of a Vegasquality ventriloquist and through his ‘dummy’ gives you the formula for a new type of high-energy dry fuel, suitable for use in rockets. In the light of these unprecedented circumstances the possible existence of an actual dead alien being must be viewed with an open mind.
“What we don’t understand is why anyone in possession of what might well be the most valuable single article on the planet would choose to keep it a secret.”
Robinett leaned over the table. “His boss at the hotel where he was working couldn’t tell us where he was going. I don’t suppose you’d have any idea, Captain Suttles?”
“I’m afraid not. Frankly, I didn’t know he’d left.”
“Actually, we just missed him. Not that it matters.” Kerry waved absently. “We know what kind of car he’s driving and we have the license number.”
“He could be anywhere by now,” Suttles pointed out.
“No, not quite anywhere.” Again that thin, predatory smile. “We’ve moved very fast on this. He doesn’t know anyone wants to talk to him and he’s not on the run. We’ll find him. We’ve been in touch … quietly, of course , with highway-patrol head-quakers in a dozen states. When his car is located we’ll arrange to pick up him and his ‘baggage.’ Everything will be handled with the utmost discretion.” She looked to her companion.
“Army intelligence having broken this discovery, we’d kind of like to keep it to ourselves,” he explained. “At least until we know what we have.”
“If there is anything to be had,” Kerry added. “Until we’re sure one way or the other we want to keep the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other government acronyms out of it. So we have to find this Hager person ourselves.”
