"Jeff Hecht - The Saucer Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

"No motels left in town, Mister. You gotta go to Wilson's Crossing, and
that's 20 miles." He pointed lazily up the road.
I sighed and headed back to the Rent-A-Wreck. The Legion Hall and the
usual rubber chicken dinner were a few blocks the other way. The wide,
white-painted hall sat between a parking lot and an aged brick building that
once had been the local bank. Now a cash machine sat inside the wide double
doors, and a faded "For Lease or Sale" sign was taped inside the windows. The
town had fared as well as the aerospace industry.
A pickup and two big old Fords were already in the parking lot. Out
front, a portable electric sign announced my visit; "OUR ALIEN VISITORS: Jack
Mills in Person, Friday, 7 p.m." I'd seen worse; oh, God, had I seen worse.
My pocket calendar gave the specifics. "Sponsor: Lawrence Ladies Club.
Contact: Abigail Waverly, program chair. After-dinner talk: 1 hour, with
slides, questions to follow. Books: publisher has shipped, _CHECK_ before
talk. Signing afterwards. Speaking fee prepaid. Lodging provided." I checked
for the slide carousel and slipped out of the car. With luck, I could check
about a room before the talk.
Luck, alas, was not with me. The publisher had shipped three boxes of
books, and two were mine. However, the third was one of the publisher's
seamier efforts to penetrate the sex-manual market. It took ten minutes to
convince the grandmotherly fossil who headed the Ladies' Club that I had
nothing to do with _that_ publication. Then I had to go over the slides with
the high-school girl running the projector. By the time I was introduced to
Miss Abigail Waverly, it was time for her to introduce me to everyone else at
the head table.
I dutifully shook hands. Angie was right that my audience had the wrong
demographics, tired and aging. Miss Waverly looked about sixty, grey and
bulky, with no discernible accent. You wouldn't notice her in a crowd of
three.
"What happened to the motel?" I asked as we sat down.
"Don't worry," she assured me. "We have a place for you."
I was not reassured. I get some come-ons from lonely old women, and
since Melinda left a few have been tempting. But most just want to talk my ear
off.
The meal wasn't bad, with fresh corn on the cob, baked potatoes, tender
pork chops, and apple pie. My tales of life near Los Angeles charmed the
ladies. I told them about the Northridge quake, freeway traffic jams, and the
craziness of the city, and they listened as if I came from another planet.
The talk was my usual spiel. I stand a podium in a dim room where
people sit at folding tables with coffee cups and desert plates scattered
before them, and tell them what they want to hear about flying saucers. In my
aerospace days, I had flipped overheads telling Pentagon paper-shufflers what
they wanted to hear about monster lasers supposed to shoot down nuclear
warheads. We pretended the paper lasers were real until their money and my job
were gone.
I told the Ladies Club that the Brysst are an ancient and gentle race,
who spent millions of years developing the wisdom and caution we lack. "Their
distant star is a dull fire compared to our brilliant sun, and their planet
huddles close to it for warmth. Yet because the Brysst sun is so faint and
red, it burns its fuel far, far slower than our sun, and it will live billions