9
An Invitation to Snoop
JUPE OPENED HIS EYES and saw that the sky overhead was blue. The fog was gone and Konrad was kneeling beside him.
“Jupe, are you all right?” Konrad asked anxiously.
Jupe groaned. A pain ran from his right shoulder to his ear. Shaking, he managed to sit up.
Nearby, Rafael Banales was helping Pete get to his feet, and John Aleman talked softly to Bob, who sat on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chin.
“Konrad,” said Jupe, “how did you find us?”
Konrad grinned. “It is not hard. I wake up and you are gone. I think if I am Jupiter Jones, I go where there has been excitement. So I wake Mr Aleman and Mr Banales and we get Mr Detweiler and come here.”
Jupe looked around. Hank Detweiler was standing behind him, scowling. “What happened?” said Detweiler.
“Someone was waiting here,” said Jupe. “I saw a person in a spacesuit. He hit Pete.”
“You’re kidding!” said Detweiler.
“No, he’s not kidding.” Pete touched his head and winced. “That guy walloped me a good one.”
Jupe touched his neck, remembering how it was. “A second person came up behind me,” he said. “He used a sort of choke hold on me and I blacked out.”
“There must have been three of them,” said Bob. “The one who got me smelled like horses.”
“What?” Charles Barron had appeared suddenly on the meadow. “Who smelled like horses? Hank, what’s going on here?”
“The boys left the ranch house sometime during the night,” Detweiler explained. “They came up here and they were attacked. Pete says it was a guy in a spacesuit. Bob says it was somebody who smelled of horses.”
“Nonsense!” said Barron. “Spacemen do not smell like horses. Hank, I came up in one of the trucks. Let’s get these boys down to the lower meadow. I’ll take them back to the ranch house and Mrs Barron can see to them there.”
Ten minutes later, Jupiter, Pete and Bob were climbing into their beds in the bunkroom, under orders from Mary Sedlack and Elsie.
“We’re having a run of good luck,” said Mary dryly. “Simon de Luca could have been killed on that meadow last night, and you might have bought it this morning, but you didn’t. Don’t push it. Stay away from the meadow. It’s not a healthy place right now.”
She and Elsie went out and down the stairs.
“She didn’t smell of horses just now,” said Jupiter, “but she did yesterday afternoon.”
“You think she might have been the one who attacked us?” said Bob.
Jupiter shrugged. “Who knows? She’s probably strong enough. I think that at least one of our attackers was an earthling. I refuse to believe that an alien from another planet was riding horseback.”
Bob stared at the ceiling. “A person who rides horseback? That wouldn’t narrow it down much. There’s Hank Detweiler. I bet he rides. Barron does, I suppose. Mary spends a lot of time with the horses. Probably Banales and Aleman ride. Then there are the ranch hands who live in the cottages. We know almost nothing about them.”
“You know almost nothing about whom?” said Mrs Barron. She had come quietly up the stairs, and now she stood in the doorway smiling at the boys.
“My husband is very upset about you,” she said. “He told me you were attacked by . . . well, by the rescuers.”
“We were attacked by three people, Mrs Barron,” said Jupe. “At least one of them was wearing a spacesuit.”
Mrs Barron sat down on the edge of Jupiter’s bed. She had a tiny flashlight and she used it to look into Jupe’s eyes. “You’re all right,” she said softly. “You’ve been fortunate.”
She went on to examine Pete. “What were you doing up on the meadow anyway?” she wanted to know.
“We were trying to get off the ranch and get to the nearest town,” said Jupe. “Mrs Barron, you seem so sure that we’re being visited by people from another planet. Is your interest in the deliverance well known to the people here at Rancho Valverde?”
“I suppose so.” Her face was troubled. “I imagine everyone on the ranch knows about it. But . . . but I’m not absolutely sure, you know, that the rescuers were here last night.”
“You’re not?” said Jupiter.
She shook her head and went to Bob’s side. “That craft on the meadow last night looked exactly like spaceships that have been reported in other parts of the country. Earthlings have spoken to the rescuers. But Simon was hurt–and you boys were hurt. The visitors have never hurt anyone before. They’re so highly developed intellectually that they’re telepathic. I can’t believe that they’d resort to striking people. That isn’t why they come. They come to help us!”
“Yes, of course,” said Jupiter. “Mrs Barron, the planet Omega is reported to be in the galaxy nearest to Earth, in the constellation of Andromeda. Do you know how far away that is?”
“Oh, about two million light years,” she said. “I know. One can’t imagine a journey of two million light years. But the rescuers have a more advanced technology than we have on Earth. Distance doesn’t matter much to them. They’ve explored a lot of deep space. It’s all explained in Korsakov’s book Parallels. Korsakov actually visited Omega and he was returned to Earth so that he could prepare the way for the rescuers. In Parallels he tells how our wars have been worrisome for the people of Omega, and since we have the atomic bomb–well, there is increased tension in all of the cosmos.”
“Um, yes,” said Jupiter.
“The rescuers will eventually remove us from the dangers on Earth,” said Mrs Barron. “They won’t take all of us, of course, but they will rescue the people who can make the greatest contribution to rebuilding our civilization when the time of chaos is over.
“My husband has always refused to believe that this will happen. But last night after he saw the spaceship, he didn’t go to bed. Instead he sat up and read Korsakov’s book and the one by Contreras. This morning he is willing to believe that we were visited by rescuers.”
“That should please you,” said Jupe.
“Not if the rescuers turn out to be ruffians who go about knocking people on the head,” she said. “I wish I could be sure they’re not.”
“You know,” said Jupe, “those attackers might not have been aliens at all.”
“I know.” She smiled sadly. “Somebody could be staging a very elaborate hoax. I mentioned the possibility to my husband this morning and he flew into a rage. I should have known better. He has decided that there are aliens here and he doesn’t wish to be contradicted. He believes that they have come to take him away to safety.”
“I guess he would like that idea,” said Jupe. “Mrs Barron, tell me about the staff here.”
She looked surprised. “The staff? You are an inquisitive boy, aren’t you? I feel as if I’m making a report down at police headquarters.”
Jupe’s wallet lay on a table next to his bed. Without a word he reached for it, took a card out of one of the pockets, and handed the card to Mrs Barron. It read:
THE THREE INVESTIGATORS
“We Investigate Anything”
? ? ?
First Investigator –
Second Investigator –
Records and Research –
JUPITER JONES
PETER CRENSHAW
BOB ANDREWS
“Investigators!” said Mrs Barron.
“Solving puzzles is our special interest,” said Jupe, “and we are quite good at it. We are not prejudiced, you see, as many adult investigators are. We are willing to concede that the most absurd events can actually take place, and frequently we are proved correct.”
“I see,” said Mrs Barron. “Well, perhaps the events that have taken place here are rather absurd, and perhaps we do need some detectives. I think I do, especially. Will you accept me as a client?”
“Certainly,” said Jupiter. “You have just retained The Three Investigators. Now tell us about the staff.”
“All right.” She sat in a small armchair at the foot of Jupe’s bed. “We met Hank Detweiler when we visited the Armstrong Ranch in Texas. Charles was impressed with the job he was doing there, and he had the credit bureau in Austin run a check on him. Charles is a great believer in credit ratings. He says if people are careless about money, they’ll be slipshod about other things, too. Hank wasn’t careless about money, so Charles hired him.
“We found Rafael through the post-graduate office of the University of California at Davis. He graduated six years ago and went to work for West Coast Citrus, and he had a good record. John Aleman owned his own garage in Indio. He worked on our car when we were passing through and did an excellent job.”
“His credit record was satisfactory?” said Jupe.
“It was. Elsie’s wasn’t so good. She paid her bills late, and several times there wasn’t enough money in her bank account to cover her cheques. She’d been helping a younger brother, however, so it was understandable that she ran short on cash now and then. She was working as a cook in a small restaurant in Saugus, and with the salary she made there she set her brother up in a little radio shop. She’s a very good cook, so Charles decided to take a chance on her.”