"Ed Howdershelt - 3rd World Products 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howdershelt Ed)

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Copyright ┬й2003 by Ed Howdershelt

First published via Abintra Press
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Chapter One
The ship arrived one Tuesday afternoon while I was on my way to see if I could fix Harriet Fisher's
computer one more time. I was parked in construction traffic on northbound US-19, trying to find a last
few drops in my coffee mug, when a spot of bright light flashed across the eastern sky. It came to an
abrupt halt apparently directly overhead, then seemed to grow somewhat larger.

My first thought was that something had exploded up there. I looked away quickly, dropping my empty
cup and covering my eyes. After a few moments I cautiously uncovered and looked for enough
maneuvering room to get my car off the road. Once I'd managed to pull over onto the grass I looked up
again. The bright spot was still growing, but it didn't seem all that much larger than before.

Others began noticing the bright spot, too, probably because I was standing outside my car and looking
up at it. When the flagman started waving cars through the intersection, the line ahead of me moved. The
line behind me didn't.

The bright spot was now low enough that the object causing it was becoming visible around it. It was a
glistening sphere that reflected sunlight at you like a spot-mirror, and it was huge. Looking at it was like
trying to see into the car in front of you in traffic when the sun was glaring off their rear window. All you
get are spots in your eyes and a headache.

Since I already had a small headache, I decided that the sphere would either be there later or it wouldn't.
We'd be invaded or not, visited or not, contacted or not.

Whatever happened, staring slack-jawed at the UFO would serve no purpose. I got back in my car and
took advantage of the stalled traffic around me by driving up to the flagman and beeping the horn. He
glanced at me. I indicated I wanted to proceed, and he barely looked around before waving me through.

I started to turn on my car radio, then decided not to bother. They wouldn't know any more than anyone
else at this point.

Harriet excitedly let me in and I went to work on her computer while she peered out a window through
her ex-husband's binoculars and prattled endlessly about the thing in the sky.

There wasn't much left of her original computer to fix, really. I'd already replaced almost everything but
the motherboard in the cranky antique, but Harriet was one of those'drive it until the wheels fall off'
people. Until it died or she did, she'd be calling me periodically to тАШmake it go again'.

Half an hour later the computer was working again and I was thirty bucks richer with nothing else on my
day's agenda, so I drove home and dug out my own binoculars for another look at the thing in the sky.