"Wait."

"Yes?"

"Damn you. Leave the others alone. Chicago. They wanted to go to Chicago, so we took them there. To the museum. The big one, Science and Industry."

"Museum. Right. Thank you. Now we've got one more problem. You'll want to call them. I'm afraid I can't let you do that, so a couple of my troops will sit with you for the rest of the day. You're not under arrest unless you want to be, but you're incommunicado for a few hours." Lee went toward her car, stopped, looked back. "FIJAGH," she said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"… Better than a Plan"

Excerpt from the electronic journal of Surrealistic Housekeeping, Adrienne Martine-Barnes, ed.:

If a little lemon juice is good for stains, a bit of gallium and germanium will do wonders for dope. I mean how much flip-flopping can a body take, land's sake? PNP is not a supermarket abbreviation for pineapple, is it? And don't forget heavy metal music, either. (Who could? Such lovely melodies…)

Orange is a Taurus, of course. (Boeuf l'Orange!) But what of the rest of the zodiac? What's your sign There is Pisces, after all. How many fish swim in the ocean of night? Or Sagittarius. No, I'm not sure what that means, either. But it must mean something! Tap into your cosmic connection and feel the vibes of the universe. I'm sure you'll come up with something useful. Let's see… Aquarius is obvious; a bit too obvious, I'm afraid. As for Gemini, they had better quit cloning around. And Aries has taken it on the lamb. Honestly. I wouldn't try to pull the wool over your eyes.

We all know how important the Sweepstakes is, so I know you'll all send your entries in promptly.

Now, the next article on surrealistic housekeeping is one you have all been asking for. How do you keep watches from melting on the arms and backs of your sofas and chairs? Why, it is simplicity itself, provided, of course, that you have enough lace Dalis…

Ike Redden threw the printout down in disgust. "All right," he said to Moorkith. "You tell me what it means!"

"Captain Arteria seems to understand this stuff," Moorkith said.

"She's on a special assignment," Redden said.

She! "Where?"

"Damned if I know," Redden said. "But she gets results."

There was a TV in the lobby of the Museum of Science and Appropriate Technology. Lee Arteria was just showing her credentials to the manager when the newscaster said, "More on the ice nudes, from Winnipeg. Gerald Cornelius and Anthony Rogers were found on foot on the Fargo highway, both suffering from frostbite. They told police of being rescued from their wrecked truck by a tribe of naked and near-naked savages."

All of Lee Arteria's assumptions came crashing down around her ears. They'd done it again, they'd moved the Angels out of the United States across the Ice in a microwave beam to keep them warm--and Lee Arteria was haring south on a wild goose chase. Well done, Whitehead.

The broadcast continued. A black-bearded man said, "They were lovely. Thin, almost hairless, and their skin was pale blue. Some of the men offered us their wives. Maybe they were evolved from Eskimos, or maybe they just learned their mores from Eskimos. Their skin was cold to the touch. I mean, when in Rome, sure, but if I had it to do all over again--"

Bruce Hyde. The breath went out of Arteria in a whoosh. So that's where they went, Hyde and Mike Glider, after they tried to get into Sherrine Hartley's house and almost got caught. Over the Ice.

And to hell with them. Lee Arteria was after bigger game.

She looked around the empty garage. "Milkheim Low Fat Milk," she said, and noted it in her casebook. "You're sure about this?"

The maintenance mechanic nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, ma'am, that's what they had painted on them. 'Milkheim.' Means 'Milk Home' in German. Now Mr. Cole, he called them trucks by names, a name for each one of 'em. One of them was Larry, and I disremember the other, but when there was three, one of them was Moe, I remembers that. Set a big store by those trucks, Mr. Cole did. Always taking care of 'em, giving me money to look after them, keep them ready to run, but he never took 'em noplace."

"Tell me about Cole," Arteria said.

He eyed her suspiciously. "What call you got to be asking about Mr. Cole?" he demanded. "He's a nice man. Touched in the head some, yes, ma'am, some people thought he was plumb crazy, but he's a nice man, no trouble at all if'n you, didn't mess around with his trucks. Or his rocket ship."

"Rocket ship." Lee smiled. "We just want to help Mr. Cole. Dr. Cole, actually. He was very famous once, did you know that? He has earned a pension from the National Science Foundation, but there was something wrong with the paperwork."

Joe Jefferson nodded sourly. He understood mistakes in paperwork.

"So all I need is his signature, and he can collect his pension," Lee said. "It's not a lot of money, but I bet he can use it. Is he around?"

"No, ma'am, leastways I haven't seen him. He used to sleep in that rocket, but a couple of days ago a lot of people come here and took them trucks away, and his… and some other stuff that belonged to Mr. Cole, and I ain't seen him since."

"A lot of people," Arteria said. She smiled. "Tell me about them."

" 'Milkheim Low Fat Milk.' Two big Peterbilt tanker trucks," Arteria said. "Look, Billings this is a long shot, we'll really look like idiots if it doesn't work out. I can't afford to look like an idiot, can you? Right. So what I want is a quiet request to State Police to report the location of any truck that says Milkheim and report it to my fax number. Observe and report, but don't stop them. But don't ask Wisconsin or Minnesota or the Dakotas. Right, Billings. Do not ask them. Yes, Billings, exactly right, it means you have to send out requests to the others one state at a time, and I'm sorry, but you see how it is. Chances are this is nothing but if it pans out we may both get promotions. Right. Thanks."

Fang guided the milk truck through the interchange and onto I-25 South. The Denver skyline glittered before him: tall, boxy, glass towers cut at strange angles. Fang squinted his eyes and tried to imagine that they were a growth of immense quartz crystals set in the midst of the High Plains. By aliens. Uh-huh: aliens. After cutting their teeth on Great Pyramids and Easter Island self-portraits, the space gods had finally hit their stride with this immense crystalline structure. White quartz, black quartz. Quartz as clear as glass; opaque, stony quartz.

Suppose someone discovered Denver's alien origin, and the aliens were still around! Disguised as real estate developers. Good. That was good. Who was in a better position to "grow" a crystal city than its developers? Come to think of it, who was more alien? What hidden purposes did they have behind their weirdly shaped erections?

Okay. The aliens are metaphors for mindless, runaway development. That made the story literary. So, the aliens realize they've been found. What do they do?

They capture Our Heroes and turn them into bug juice. Alien Cliche number one, vintage 1950.

They capture Our Heroes and take them on a tour of the universe and invite them to join the galactic confederation. Alien Cliche number two, vintage 1980.

Damn Hollywood. No matter what kind of aliens you had, they were already used up.