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burned up, blown up, or otherwise scattered itself undetectably across a wide
section of west Texas. Even if ithad existed andhad come down in one section,
this part of the state was crisscrossed with uncountable deep creeks overgrown
with cottonwood, live oak, and other thick vegetation. Or it could have fallen
into a deep dirty lake.
A thousand people, he was positive, could scour the same territory and have
no better luck than the five of them had had. A month of this was more than
enough.
He was sick of the whole business-sick of small-town motels, sick of lonely
beds, and sick of the scientists' subtle but certain air of condescension
toward him. He was even getting sick of real country cooking, a sure sign it
was time to quit and go home.
They still had some time left before the holidays. He resigned himself to
continuing the hunt a while longer.
The day wore on, and they followed the by now mo-notonous procedure of
interviewing farmer after farmer. If even one had seen something strange,
anything out of the ordinary, he would have understood the scientists'
insistence on going on.
But none of the puzzled men and women they talked with had noticed anything
out of the ordinary. That was hardly surprising, considering the terrible
storm that had raged that night. Everyone had sensibly been inside in bed or
stretched out in front of a roaring fire.
Some of the looks they got suggested that many thought the peculiar group of
five people had spent too many such nights wandering around exposed to the
elements, with the result that their brains were slightly frozen in spots.
"It's getting dark," Sarah Goldberg noted. "We'd bet-ter be getting back to
Albany." She was first back into the station wagon, oblivious to the curious
stares of the two cattleman they'd just interviewed.
"We've about covered all the farms and residences in this area," she said
when the wagon was rolling again. "Tomorrow we'll move our base of operation
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to Breck-enridge and commence a fresh spiral outward from there."
As the temperature outside dropped, Chester turned one the car's heater. To
add to his discomfort, it had begun putting out a disagreeable odor lately, in
addition to a steady grinding as-if a bearing or something had broken loose
and was rattling about inside it.
He couldn't find fault with it. It had been in constant use all day and night
the past month. It was only sound-ing the frustration and irritation Chester
felt himself.
In the rapidly growing darkness the driver, known to them all only as Pat,
had switched the brights on. The extra illumination was welcome on the narrow
back farm roads. Pat rarely had to dim them, as oncoming cars were infrequent.
This part of the county was especially thinly popu-lated. Pat slowed, afraid
of missing the Albany turnoff, and Goldberg began screaming like a
high-schooler whose date had unexpectedly turned out to be the town wolf.
"Stop the car! Stop the car!"
The usually phlegmatic, imperturbable Pat slammed a size-thirteen shoe on the
brake, and they were all thrown sharply forward. Chester pushed hair from his
eyes and turned to look angrily into the backseat.
"What is it now, Miss Goldberg?" he asked, fighting to remain civil. The old
woman's eyes ignored him as she stared out the window on her left.
"Look-look at that," she murmured.
Something in her tone made Chester turn quickly to gaze in the indicated
direction; he had to peer around the considerable bulk of the driver to do so.
Disappointment was instant. Just off the road and ahead was yet another of
the many isolated ranches they'd passed and stopped at during the past month.
This one was a bit more modern, a little larger than the average, but
otherwise unspectacular.
Befitting the season, it was lined around roof edge and windows with
Christmas lights. Two plastic, meter-high candy canes flanked the entrance to
the yard in front of the main house.
Chester felt a pang of homesickness at the sight, as he had at every such
group of decorations they'd passed. He'd never get home in time to string his
own lights. Charlene and Mary-Ellen would be heartbroken, and the things would
sit up in the attic, unused, for another year.
"Not the house. Not the house," Goldberg stam-mered, noticing the direction
of his gaze. "Off to the left of it, in the back."
Off to one side of the house and set farther back from the road was a large
barn. The front edge of the barn's roof was also lined with lights. The cause
of the staid scientist's sudden hysteria was located there.
As was common in such structures, a large square gap was set above the ground
over the barn's entrance, open-ing into the hayloft. The opening was currently
filled by an object of indeterminate size and dimensions.
It lit the whole front of the barn with an incandescent yellow glow as soft
and intense as an Arizona sunset. Within the yellow dwelt a horde of colored
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pinpoints ar-ranged in intricate and strange patterns to form a pho-tonic
mosaic. The lights shifted position as they watched.
"It's so bright, the smaller lights so deep and rich," Tut observed quietly.
'"LEDs, maybe?"
"No," objected Goldberg with assurance. "The color is too intense even for
that. Pull in here, Pat; there's no gate. "
Until now the stoic sergeant had responded with equa-nimity to requests from
all his passengers. This time he glanced for confirmation from his real
superior.
"By all means, Pat, let's see what it is," Chester de-clared, unable to take
his fascinated gaze from the enig-matic object. So bright was its glow that it
overwhelmed the sign that had been strung on wire just beneath it. The sign
was cut from silver foil and consisted of four large letters: N-O-E-L, Chester
read to himself.
Little bounces jostled the occupants of the station wagon as it turned left
into the dirt driveway running toward the barn. As they stopped next to the
house and the sergeant turned off the motor, the barking of two or more large
dogs could be heard. Nothing rushed to meet them, however.
"I guess they're chained or in the house," Tut com-mented nervously. Chester
wasn't surprised at the slight tremor in Tut's voice. Numerous stops had
already shown that the huge engineer had a genuine fear of dogs.
Goldberg left the car and headed straight for the barn. The youngest of the
three scientists put out a hand to restrain her before Chester could do so
verbally.
"Better hold off a minute, Sarah."
She whirled, glared at him. "Why wait?"
Jean Calumet kept a hand on her even as he continued to regard the object set [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]