Chapter 8

Dr. Victoria Chandler looked up from her computer screen in annoyance. She despised interruptions, particularly when she was concentrating on a difficult problem. And especially interruptions by snakes such as Harold Parker.

“What is it, Harold?” she asked impatiently, settling her glasses back on her nose and brushing back a loose strand of light brown hair.

Parker, his slicked back hair glittering in the fluorescent lighting, leered at her. “Looks like you’re headed for the boondocks.” He flapped a piece of paper at her.

Victoria snatched the paper and ignored Parker’s ogling while she scanned the document. She grimaced. “Shit,” she said. “Where the hell is this place?”

“Baby, I’m sure I have no idea. But I know one thing: You sure aren’t going to find anything like me down there in the sticks.”

“Thank god for small favors.”

Parker ignored the jibe. “So, whaddaya say? Let’s make a night of it. We’ll have a little send-off party. I promise it’ll be a night you’ll never forget.” He leered at her again.

“Harold, it’s all I can do to forget my days with you when I go home from work.” She reread the message again and a frown creased her forehead. “Please, do me a favor, will you? Go away.”

“O.K., baby, play hard to get. Hey, you know where I’ll be.”

Victoria paid no attention to his departure. Her mind was already clicking over the new data. Damn, she thought, he isn’t giving me much notice. Then again, this is it. This is the real thing. She felt a tingle of nervous energy course up and down her spine. A tiny part of her mind, meanwhile, was whispering: “Don’t screw this up. Don’t screw this up.” She brushed those thoughts aside. This was what she had been waiting for. This was her chance to prove herself in a big way. Oh, sure, her male colleagues in the Carrington Laboratories had finally conceded her a modicum of respect but only after she had worked harder and longer than they had. She had a quick, agile mind, able to logically reason out problems, and the iron determination to apply that talent. So what if her job had so far consumed her life? So what if they called her “The Ice Queen” behind her back? So what if the few hours she spent at her apartment were alone? She just went there to eat and sleep anyway. Her career was the main thing. Besides, she’d had bad luck at personal relationships. The world was filled with nothing more than Harold Parkers, all interested in one thing. And it wasn’t her mind.

All her life she’d wanted to be appreciated for what was inside her, but all anyone seemed to care about was what was on the outside. Even her mother had nagged her incessantly about her appearance: “Do something with that hair,” she complained. “Buy some nice dresses,” she’d said. “Meet some nice boys,” she’d begged.

Well, she hadn’t had much luck meeting nice boys, she thought ruefully. She wasn’t bad looking, she admitted to herself modestly, but something about her attracted all the wrong sort of people. Perhaps it was because she was so inward looking; as a child, she had spent her time reading rather than playing with the kids in the neighborhood. She had been shy, and had a hard time making friends. It was easier to stay in her room and read. It was when she’d run out of Nancy Drew mysteries to read that she’d stumbled on an old Robert Heinlein book at the library, and she’d gotten hooked. She devoured all the science fiction she could find, and her interest in the extraterrestrial had led her to major in science in college, at Rutgers. Her mother had been severely disappointed, hoping that she would major in husband-finding. That had nearly happened … but it hadn’t exactly worked out, and was something she didn’t let herself think about any more. Even when Victoria had moved on to get her graduate degrees at Cornell, her mother had harbored hopes that she would at least snag herself a professor. But Victoria had gradually grown accustomed to spending all her time in the library or lab, not at some party or in someone’s bed. No regrets, though.

Now, here she was, 32 years old, about to take a major step forward in her career, but all her mother talked about was grandchildren. But she had resigned herself to being single; in fact, she told herself, she preferred it that way. She liked being able to live her own life. She liked not having to accommodate someone else’s likes and dislikes. She liked being on her own. So what if even her cat had run away?

She turned her attention back to the message. Leave tomorrow, she mused. She’d have to scramble to finish up here at work, and rush home to pack a few things. But that was O.K. She was excited. She was going to be in charge. Carrington had made that quite clear. She knew he had his own misgivings about her, but her record spoke for itself. And they had one thing in common: A passionate belief that intelligent life existed out there in the cosmos. She would find an alien for Conrad Carrington, she thought, even if she had to go to some jerkwater little town to do it.

***

Winston groaned. He rubbed his eyes and studied the computer screen. Unbelievable, he thought. He looked around the newsroom. Warren, the sports guy, was out sick. Hannah, the part-time features writer, was at her desk typing up wedding announcements. Winston frowned. Where was that kid? “Lionel!” he bellowed.

A head popped around the corner of the break room. “You need me, chief?” Winston waved the intern over. “Lionel, about your story on the new school bus…”

Lionel beamed. “Pretty good, huh, dude? For my first story and all, I mean.”

Winston sighed. “No ‘dudes,’ remember Lionel?”

“Uh, sorry chief.” Lionel looked sheepish. Winston had gotten his fill of “dude” after only one day of Lionel.

“Lionel, this story…” Winston shook his head. “Lionel, look, you remember what I told you every story needed?”

Lionel frowned in concentration. “A headline?”

“No, Lionel, think. The five ‘W’s’, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, du… chief. Those ‘who, what, where’ things. Yo, that’s cool.”

“Well, um, Lionel, when you’re writing a story about the school board buying a new school bus, one of the ‘whats’ would be how much money the bus cost.”

Lionel Pringle looked perplexed. “Well, you know, I just didn’t think, like, that was any of my business.”

Winston sighed again. “Lionel, getting information is our business.”

“Well, you know, like, I thought that might be, you know, like privileged information. Secret like.” Lionel bobbed his head encouragingly.

“No, Lionel, this would be a matter of public record. People want to know how much they are paying for a school bus. They need to know how much they are paying.”

Lionel frowned again. “But I thought you said the school board was buying the bus.”

“It is, Lionel,” Winston said patiently. “But they use tax dollars. Which comes from the taxpayers. Do you see?”

Lionel nodded. “So you want me to find out how much the bus cost?”

“Yes, Lionel. Also when it will arrive in Jupiter. And what company it was purchased from. And how many other buses we have. All those kinds of facts, Lionel.”

“No problemo, dude, um, chief.” His face split into a goofy grin again. “Yo, chief, how about I also find out what color it’s going to be?”

Winston looked at the intern and thought of a big, happy puppy. He sighed again. “Yes, Lionel, that would be great.”

“Cool. I’m on it. Later, dude.”

Winston turned back to his computer but had barely gotten back to work when he felt a hovering presence behind him. Glancing up, he saw the publisher, Hobart Hobgood IV, clutching some papers.

“Morning, Hobart, look I wanted to talk to you about the budget…”

“Oh, no time to chit-chat this morning, Winston. Got places to go, things to do, people to see. But here you go; here are a few memos for you. Oh, and by the by, good work on that flying saucer story. We’re still getting comments on that one. Stay on top of it, now, all right? Good, good. Keep up the good work.” And Hobgood bustled out of the newsroom and disappeared out front.

Winston looked through the stack of memos. One was an admonishment to use the toilet paper more conservatively. Another suggested that all desks should be cleared of any clutter by the end of the workday. The third memo was the monthly reminder not to make personal calls on company telephones. Winston riffled through the rest and tossed them all in the trashcan. He rubbed his eyes again. Nothing in journalism school had prepared him for this, he thought.

As a child, Winston had loved to read. He couldn’t understand his friends’ complete dislike of books, nor could they comprehend his bookwormish tendencies. His love of reading had led him to writing; by the third grade he was regularly writing stories about a gang of kids who had adventures and solved crimes. He didn’t let anyone read them, of course; sensitive about his creativity, he had decided that the safest course was simply to limit his reading audience to himself. It wasn’t until the fifth grade that he had let anyone read anything he had written, and that was only because he started a neighborhood newspaper and writing about someone’s cat being lost or who had won a talent show wasn’t nearly as personal as, well, his own imagination.

By the time he entered high school in Charlotte, he knew he would be a writer. He loved the feel of words, he loved their power, he loved being able to conjure something real out of thin air. While he continued his personal writing – by this time it was mostly bad poetry about unrequited love – he also excelled on the school newspaper. By his senior year, he held the lofty title of editor-in-chief, although this didn’t seem to enhance his popularity with girls in the slightest.

He had better luck in college in Chapel Hill. While working for the student newspaper, he interviewed a young woman who was protesting something or other … Gwen had always been so passionate about causes. Somehow, they had hit it off: The book worm who wanted to write and the protester who was studying to be a social worker.

They were married right after college, and they bounced around the Chapel Hill area for a couple of years; she worked in shelters helping abused women while he learned the ropes as a low-paid reporter on small papers. A vacation to the mountains had changed their lives; they’d both fallen in love with the area and eventually found a way to move there when a job with the Jupiter Planet opened up. It had been a struggle, particularly with Gwen not working when Nikki was born, and then … then it was all gone, Winston thought sadly. Or mostly gone.