“No. But do you really think they'd scruple at wasting some people over a thing like this?”

Gardener slowly shook his head.

“So taking your advice would amount to this,” Anderson said. “First, call the Dallas Police; then get taken into custody by the Dallas Police; then get killed by the Dallas Police.”

Gard looked at her, troubled, and then said, “All right. I cry uncle. But what's the alternative? You have to do something. Christ, the thing is killing you.”

“What?”

“You've lost thirty pounds, how's that for a start?”

“Thir-'Anderson looked startled and uneasy. “No, Gard, no way. Fifteen, maybe, but I was getting love-handles anyway, and-”

“Go weigh yourself,” Gardener said. “If you can get the needle over ninetyfive, even with your boots on, I'll eat the scale. Lose a few more pounds and you'll get sick. The state you're in, you could go into heartbeat arrhythmia and die in two days.”

“I needed to lose some weight. And I was-”

“too busy to eat, was that what you were going to say?”

“Well, not exactly in those w-”

“When I saw you last night, you looked like a survivor of the Bataan death march. You knew who I was, and that was all you knew. You're still not tracking. Five minutes after we got back in here from looking at your admittedly amazing find, you were asking me if you'd taken me to see it yet.”

Bobbi's eyes were still on the table, but he could see her expression: it was set and sullen.

He touched her gently. “All I'm saying is that no matter how wonderful that thing in the woods is, it's done things to your body and mind that have been terrible for you.”

Bobbi drew away from him. “If you're saying I'm crazy

“No, I'm not saying you're crazy, for God's sake! But you could get crazy if you don't slow down. Do you deny you've been having blackouts?”

“You're cross-examining me, Gard.”

“And for a woman who was asking my advice fifteen minutes ago, you're being a pretty fucking hostile witness.”

They glared at each other across the table for a moment.

Anderson gave first. “Blackouts isn't the right word. Don't try to equate what happens to you when you drink too much with what's been happening to me. They're not the same.”

“I'm not going to argue semantics with you, Bobbi. That's a sidetrack and you know it. The thing out there is dangerous. That's what seems important to me.”

Anderson looked up at him. Her face was unreadable. “You think it is,” she said, the words making neither a question nor a declarative sentence-they came out perfectly flat and inflectionless.

“You haven't just been getting or receiving ideas,” Gardener said. “You've been driven.”

“Driven.” Anderson's expression did not change.

Gardener rubbed at his forehead. “Driven, yes. Driven the way a bad, stupid man will drive a horse until it drops dead in the traces… then stand over it and whip the carcass because the damned nag had the nerve to die. A man like that is dangerous to horses, and whatever there is in that ship… I think it's dangerous to Bobbi Anderson. If I hadn't shown up.

“What? If you hadn't shown up, what?”

“I think you'd still be at it right now, working day and night, not eating… and that by this weekend you'd have been dead.”

“I think not,” Bobbi said coolly, “but just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. I'm on track again now.”

“You're not on track again, and you're not all right.”

That mulish look was back on her face, that look which said Gard was talking trash Bobbi would just as soon not hear.

“Look,” Gardener said, “I'm with you on at least one thing, all the way. This is the biggest, most important, utterly mind-blowing thing that's ever happened. When it comes out, the headlines in the New York Times are going to make it look like the National Enquirer. People are going to change their fucking religions over this, do you know it?”

“Yes. I

“This isn't a powderkeg; it's an A-bomb. Do you know that?”

“Yes,” Anderson said again.

“Then get that pissed-off look off your face. If we're going to talk about it, let's fucking talk about it.”

Anderson sighed. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry.”

“I admit I was wrong about calling the Air Force.”

They spoke together, then laughed together, and that was good.

Still smiling, Gard said: “Something has to be done.”

“I'll buy that,” Anderson said.

“But, Bobbi, Jesus! I flunked chemistry and barely got through funnybook physics. I don't know exactly, but I do know it's got to be… well… damped out, or something.”

“We need some experts.”

“That's right!” Gardener said, seizing on it. “Experts.”

“Gard, all the experts do forensic work for the Dallas Police.”

Gardener threw his hands up in disgust.

“Now that you're here, I'll be all right. I know it.”

“It's more likely to go the other way. Next thing, I'll start having blackouts.” Anderson said: “I think the risk might be worth it.”

“You've decided already, haven't you?”

“I've decided what I want to do, yeah. What I want to do is keep quiet about it and finish the dig. Digging it all the way out shouldn't even be necessary. I think that once I-once we, I hope-can free it to a depth of another forty or fifty feet, we could come to a hatchway. If we can get inside…” Bobbi's eyes gleamed and Gardener felt an answering excitement rise in his own chest at the thought. All the doubts in the world could not hold back that excitement.

“If we can get inside?” Gardener repeated.

“If we can get inside, we can get at the controls. And if we can do that, I'm going to fly that fucker right out of the ground.”

“You think you can do that?”

“I know I can.”

“And then?”

“Then I don't know,” Bobbi said, shrugging. It was the best, most efficient lie she had told so far… but Gardener thought it was a lie. “The next thing will happen, that's all I know.”

“But you say it's my decision to make.”

“Yes, I do. As far as the outside world goes, all I can do is continue to not tell. If you decide you will, well, what could I do to stop you? Shoot you with Uncle Frank's shotgun? I couldn't. Maybe a character in one of my books could, but I couldn't. This, unfortunately, is real life, where there are no real answers. I guess in real life I'd just stand here watching you go.

“But whoever you called, Gard-scientists from the university up in Orono, biologists from Jennings Labs, physicists from MIT-whoever you called, it would turn out you'd actually called the Dallas Police. You'd have people coming in here with trucks full of barbed wire and men with guns.” She smiled a little. “At least I wouldn't have to go to that police-state Club Med alone.”

“No?”

“No. You're in it now too. When they flew me out there, you'd be right beside me in the next seat.” The wan smile broadened, but there still wasn't much humor in it. “Welcome to the monkey-house, my friend. Aren't you glad you came?”

“Charmed,” Gardener said, and suddenly they were both laughing.

When the laughter passed, Gardener found that the atmosphere in Bobbi's kitchen had eased considerably.

Anderson asked: “What do you think would happen to the ship if the Dallas Police got hold of it?”

“Have you ever heard of Hangar 18?” Gard asked.

“No.

“According to the stories, Hangar 18's supposed to be part of an Air Force base outside of Dayton. Or Dearborn. Or somewhere. Anywhere, USA. It's where they're supposed to have the bodies of about five little men with fishy faces and gills on their necks. Saucerians. It's just one of those stories you hear, like how somebody found a rat head in his fast-food burger, or how there are alligators in the New York sewers. Only now I sort of wonder if it is a fairy tale. But I think that would be the end.”