With the FBI tippytoeing behind, I thought. Oh well. I wished them joy
of it. Me, I find few things more exquisitely boring than standing by
while somebody else tinkers with a piece of apparatus. “What is this
idea?”
“Um-m, on the technical side, I’m afraid. A test of the hypothesis that
the Fair Folk are indeed there. That implies that some are always moving
away from the morning terminator, the sunrise line, to avoid direct
sunlight. Since by the laws of thermodynamics they are at a temperature
not identical with that of their immediate surroundings, a minuscule
Doppler effect on the infrared radiation that their presence polarizes
slightly but measurably–”
Ginny laughed. “Never mind. You are back to your own self.”
“Well, fine,” I said. “However, I expect you’ll agree the real test is
for somebody to land and meet them.’
Will was not an unworldly academic. On Long Island he’d been a keen
sailboat racer; here he went camping and backpacking; he’d taken more
money from me in poker games than I had from him. He caught my drift,
lowered his beer, and clamped his gaze upon me. “You have hopes beyond
another Selene,” he breathed.
We told him that we’d obtained certain calculations and preliminary
plans that looked promising. He didn’t inquire further. Nor did he jump
up and dance, though we saw it in his eyes. “A possibility, you say? But
to realize it–” He sighed. “That, the how of it, is out of my
department.”
“Not absolutely,” Ginny said.
He jerked to attention. “What do you mean, please?”
“Steve and I may have to go back east in this connection.” I sat in awe
of her steadiness. “Back east” implied the Midwest, Nornwell; it did not
actually say so. “A week, perhaps more. We aren’t free to discuss
details yet, and if we do leave we shall have to word our calls home
carefully. The hostiles are still loose, you know.”
He smoked like a steam locomotive. “Are you that worried about Coyote or
whoever? Parochial and unsophisticated Beings, I should think.”
“Coyote–or whoever–apparently has allies.” She could admit this
because the press had already speculated about it, along with much
wilder stories. My favorite rumor had to do with the moon inciting free
love, which led to a plot against a lunar landing by the Pope and the Ku
Klux Klan. “Let’s play cautiously.”
He nodded. “I see.”
She caught me also by surprise: “If we do have to take off, would you
come over and stay with the children?”
He barely grabbed his pipe before it dropped and ignited his pants.
“What? Are you joking?”
“Some adult must. You’re our best bet.”
The FBI surveillance will come along, I thought. Which in the present
case is not a bad thing.
“But,” he protested, “but I don’t know anything about–about child
care.”
“You know more than you think,” she pursued. “Not that there would
likely be much call on you. Valeria is quite mature for her age. Ben is
a sensible and well-behaved boy. Between them they can mostly do for
Chryssa whatever she can’t do herself–except be the father stand-in and
tell her bedtime stories and other such roles I know you enjoy. We’d
arrange for our housecleaner and her mother to give extra help. They’re
kind and reliable people. As for your work, I’m hoping you can take it
over there, and sleep there, and know where to call for help in any
unlikely emergencies.”
He bit his lip. “It’s a considerable responsibility,” he stalled.
She looked straight at him. “We trust you, Will.”
————————————————————————
20
—
On our way home, Ginny and I reached another agreement. When we arrived,
I knocked on Valeria’s door. She opened it and glowered. “We need to
talk by ourselves,” I said. “There’s something important for you to
know.”
Her face came alive. “Yako,” she replied, whatever that meant in her
argot, and followed me to my study. Her mother felt that her father
could best handle this, preferably in a masculine atmosphere. Well-worn
leather chairs; a couple of ship models on shelves and a half-built one
on the desk along with other clutter; a bookshelf whose contents ran to