“Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got my people working on it.”
He eyed her without smiling. “That’s why I’m worried.”
“Gustav, have I ever cheated you? Max? Sophia?” When no response was forthcoming, she simply ignored the implications. “We need to put Ross Ed and his act out there fast, before somebody else comes up with the idea. Once the word gets out on the street there’ll be alien bands all over the place.”
Curious to see how Tealeaf’s guests would react, Ross decided to toss a little truth into the brew. “It’s not a gimmick. Jed is a real alien, you know.”
The blond man smiled. “Yeah, sure, kid, sure. Hollywood’s full of ’em.”
Tealeaf escorted her guests our, her patented patter rising above their still-querulous but now mildly excited voices.
“What do you make of that?” Caroline tried one of the tiny sandwiches, frowned, and delicately spat it out into a napkin.
“Hard to say. It sure went fast.” Picking up a remote control from a nearby end table, he switched on the sixty-inch TV and leaned back on the couch, flipping channels in search of something mindless and entertaining.
“You ought to try this.” She offered him something round and red from the tray. “I’ve had them before and they grow on you.”
He eyed the doughnut shape and its pink topping warily. “What is it?”
“Bagel, cream cheese, onion, and lox.”
“I’ve had bagels before. This smells like dead fish.”
“It is dead fish.”
“You eat it all together like that?”
“How else?” Demonstrating, she popped it in her mouth and chewed. Several minutes later she was still chewing.
Looking over his shoulder, he considered the ocean. “I wonder if you can find a good chicken-fry around here?”
“This is Los Angeles. I bet you can find anything.”
He pointed excitedly at the screen. “Hey, look. Must be one of the Star Wars films.”
Though he boosted the volume on the enormous set, the horde of battling spaceships made no sound. Bursts of energy beyond human ken flashed on screen, not unlike the conversation which had just concluded. Only when the view cut to the interior of one of the warring vessels did the noise and confusion of combat become audible.
He fiddled with the remote. “Damn sound keeps going in and out.”
“Maybe it’s in the broadcast.” She tried to calm him. “Can’t do anything about that. Neat special effects, though.” 5he blinked at the screen. “I don’t remember any of the ships in the Star Wars films looking like that.”
“Now there’s a good alien,” he declared as something lethargic and legless lumbered into view. “Much better than Jed.”
Numerous tentacles emerged from the lump of gray protoplasm, which was clad in swirling bands of bright red and yellow. Silvery cilia propelled it across the deck. In the background a knot of identical creatures clustered over a table or bench. They were soon joined by a hunched-over giraffelike being equipped with two sets of prehensile lips in lieu of hands. More neat special effects hung from its long, muscular neck, within easy reach of the double lips.
A series of eyespots ran around the upper quarter of the gray domers, as Ross Ed named them. It spoke through a device attached to its upper body by an encircling band of metal, bellowing and barking at others of its kind.
“Doesn’t look like any of the aliens from Star Wars, either.”
“Sure they do,” Ross Ed insisted. “Don’t you remember the cantina scene from the first movie? That was full of aliens, some of whom you only saw for a few seconds.”
“I don’t know …”
As the perspective shifted it became possible to view the ferocious altercation through wide circular ports. Other aliens walked, slidded, or scuttled in and out of view. Wholly into the film, Ross Ed decided to try one of the bagel-and-Iox combinations. Unlike anything he’d ever eaten before, the combination of flavors exploded in his mouth. He swallowed and helped himself to another.
Just as he was coming to the realization that bagels with cream cheese and lox require a longer period to digest than, say, aluminum foil, the gray domer which had dominated the foreground view turned toward them. Contracting its full compliment of cilia, it nearly leaped off the floor. Responding to this outcry, the giraffe creature ambled over and filled the screen with its head, blocking out nearly everything else. Its two eyes were bright red, the pupils tiny and black.
Withdrawing, it conversed with the gray domer. Other domers began to edge near, peering between the disputants in the direction of the screen. Several equally curious and uniquely distinctive aliens joined the growing assemblage. All variously pointed, gestured, or gesticulated in the direction of the screen. Several argued vociferously enough to come to blows and had to be separated by others of their own kind.
“I don’t remember any of this, but it’s great!” Ross Ed leaned forward. ‘key make it look like that domer in the middle is staring straight at you.”
As he finished, the alien in question pointed something that looked like an empty peanut-butter jar filled with scraps from a machine shop directly at the screen. One tentacle nudged a transparent switch.
Caroline screamed as the big-screen TV exploded, sending shards of faux wood and electronic components frying. Ross Ed threw up his hands to protect his face.
When he dropped them there was nothing left of the set but a smoking base from which occasional sparks fizzed and spurtered. Waving away the smoke, he made sure Jed and Caroline were all right before stumbling over to the wall to pull what remained of the plug from its socket. The house, at least, seemed undamaged.
Meanwhile Caroline had opened a window to let the sharply acrid smoke out. She turned back to him, coughing.
“Well, that was interesting.”
“Pretty strong film. Set must’ve had a bad short inside. Maybe I turned the volume up tm much.”
“I don’t think it was a short. Ross Ed.” She was staring, not at the ruins of the TV, but at where an alien corpse lay motionless on the couch. The suit wasn’t glowing, and that certainly wasn’t a smile on the keeled, inhuman face, but she suspected what had happened nonetheless.
“Jed did it,” she declared firmly. “I don’t know how, or why, but he’s responsible.” She turned back to the demolished big-screen. ‘fat wasn’t a movie, Ross Ed. We were looking at real aliens, engaged in a real battle, and they finally started to look back at us. I don’t think they liked being spied on.”
“So what you’re saying,” he replied slowly as he considered her words, “is that Jed pulled in a channel that’s not on local cable.”
