Part 26 (2/2)

”I'd like to show our friend here exactly where we are,” I said.

”No problem,” Joshua said.

The cube disappeared. The Earth hovered below us, the moon off to one side.

Jim Van Doren screamed higher than I had ever heard a grown man scream before.

”I think we have some sedatives back in the ambulance,” Miranda said, after we had Joshua re-tint the cube.

”Nah,” I said. ”He maintained bladder control. He'll be fine.”

Van Doren leaned on the side of his Escort. For some reason he had a death grip on his radio antenna. ”Holy s.h.i.+t,” he said.

”I remember having that very same reaction once,” I said.

”Are we really in s.p.a.ce?” he asked.

”Oh, yes,” I said.

”What the h.e.l.l is going on?” Van Doren asked.

”Jim, remember that time in my car, when you asked me to tell you what I was up to?”

”Sort of,” Van Doren said. ”I'm not thinking too well at the moment.”

”Try,” I said. ”It'll help.”

Van Doren closed his eyes to concentrate. ”You told me that you were doing something with s.p.a.ce aliens,” he said.

”Right,” I said.

”I thought you were just being an a.s.shole,” he said.

”Just goes to show,” I said.

He pointed over to Joshua's ledge. ”And the dog is an alien.”

”Mostly. It's sort of a long story,” I said.

Van Doren's mind was working furiously now. ”Is....,” he began, looked towards the ambulance, and then back at Miranda and me. ”Mich.e.l.le Beck's an alien, isn't she? Something's happened to her and now you have to take her back to the mothers.h.i.+p?”

Miranda giggled. Van Doren scowled. ”I'm sorry,” Miranda said. ”I think the word 'mothers.h.i.+p' did it to me.”

”Well?” he said, to me. ”Is Mich.e.l.le Beck an alien?”

”No,” I said. ”At least, not yet.”

”Not yet?” Van Doren said. ”What does that mean? Are they going to a.s.similate her into their collective?”

Miranda burst out laughing.

”What?” Van Doren was shouting now.

It was a second before Miranda could catch herself. Then she gently touched Van Doren's arm.

”Jim, you've got to stop watching so much science fiction,” she said. ”It's making you talk funny.”

”Ha ha ha,” Van Doren said, peevishly, and pulled away. ”Look, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.”

I considered Van Doren for a moment, trying to decide what I was going to do with him. Joking aside, murdering him wasn't an option. But he now knew more about the existence of the Yherajk than anyone outside of me, Miranda and Carl, and that could be dangerous to us. I was loyal to Carl and Joshua, and Miranda was loyal to me, but Van Doren wasn't loyal to any of us. Certainly not to me. Quite the opposite, in fact, since he in the last few weeks he'd been doing his d.a.m.nedest to cut my career out from under me.

Well, I thought. Time to change all of that.

”Jim, why do you work for The Biz?” I asked.

”What?” he said. ”What does that have to do with anything?”

”I'm just wondering,” I said. ”You make no bones that it's a s.h.i.+tty little magazine, and that you're doing s.h.i.+tty little jobs on it. But you're still there. Why?”

”I don't know if you've noticed this, but journalism is not exactly a rapidly expanding profession,” Van Doren said. ”Particularly in Los Angeles, where you basically have to put a gun to peoples' heads to make them read.”

”You could always move,” I said.

”What, and miss all this?”

”I'm serious,” I said.

”So am I,” Van Doren said. ”Would you want to be an agent in Omaha, Tom?”

”No, but that's not where my business is,” I said.

”Well, neither is mine,” Van Doren said. ”I write about the entertainment world. Have to be here to do that. I'm writing for a magazine that's near the a.s.s-end of that world, I admit that. But you have to start somewhere. Think of it as the journalism equivalent of working on a straight-to-video flick.”

”Why write about entertainment?” I asked. ”Really, who gives a s.h.i.+t about it? It's not really important. It's not real news. You're just wasting your time and talent, such as it is.”

”Nice cheap shot,” Van Doren said.

”I try,” I said.

”And you're wrong,” Van Doren said. ”It's not a waste. You're so stuck in the belly of the beast that you don't notice it, but our entertainment is the single most successful export America has.”

”Shucks,” I said. ”And all this time I thought our most successful export was democracy. Guess that was just another lie I learned in school. I hear evolution's kind of a crock, too.”

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