The Wanderer

Hunter and Margo held each other tight, their skin chilling and prickling, for both remembered the figure they had seen in the shadow of the truck, and both had the thought that one of the weightless figures was Doc — and the whole sight another, though bolder, ghostly manifestation, or a continuation of the first.

When nothing more happened they went a few steps farther down the hill, and then Margo looked down and gasped with horror and retreated a sudden two steps as if from a snake, dragging him back with her.

From the ground in front of them rose two heads of men, their figures earth-encumbered to the shoulders. The features of the heads were blurred, though one misty face seemed namelessly familiar to Hunter. Necks and shoulders identified one as a uniformed spaceman, one — the familiar one — as a civilian. The thought flashed through Hunter’s mind of how much this was like Ulysses’ encounter with the spirits of the dead in the Underworld, these two spirits summoned not by the hot shed blood of the bull, but by the pounding blood of his and Margo’s lovemaking.

Then the two figures rose out of the ground, not by their own efforts, for they moved neither hand nor foot, but drawn up by a power outside them until their feet touched the surface of the ground, yet not quite as if they stood but rather floated there, facing Hunter and Margo six feet away. Then what was blurred came into focus and Margo gasped: “Don! Paul!” although she clutched more tightly at Hunter as she did so, and as he, too, recognized the second figure.

The Paul-figure smiled and opened its lips, and a voice which synchronized perfectly with the lip movements yet did not come from the throat said: “Hello, Margo and Professor…Excuse my poor memory. We’re not ghosts. This is merely an advanced form of communication.”

In similar fashion the Don-figure said: “Paul and I are talking to you from a small saucer out in space, between you and the Wanderer, but nearer the earth. It’s wonderful to see you, Margo, dear.”

“That’s right,” Paul chimed in. “I mean about being in the saucer. It’s the same one that picked me up. See—” he lifted something in his hands. “Here’s Miaow!”

The little cat rested quietly for a moment, then its lips writhed back, there was a synchronized spitting hiss and it vanished into the darkness in a whirl of its own little limbs.

The Paul-figure scowled and momentarily raised a hand to his lips and sucked at it, then explained: “She got excited. It’s all a little too weird for her.”

Margo let go of Hunter and put his arms away from her and stepped forward, reaching a hand toward Paul but raising the other to Don’s cheek and lifting her face to kiss him.

The hand went through the cheek, however, and with a little nervous gasp — not so much of fear as of exasperation at her own nervousness — Margo retreated back to Hunter.

“We’re only three-dimensional images,” Paul explained with a quirking smile.

“Touch doesn’t transmit on this system. We’re seeing your two images up here in the saucer, except they aren’t always together in the saucer, especially when they were moving into focus. It’s really pretty weird, if you’ll excuse my saying so, Professor…”

“My name’s Ross Hunter,” he said, at last managing to speak.

Don said to Margo: “I’m sorry I’m too insubstantial to kiss, dear. I’ll make up for that when I really see you. Incidentally, I’ve actually been on the Wanderer.”

“And I’ve been talking to one of their beings,” Paul put in. “She’s quite a person — you’d have to see her. She wants us to—”

Hunter interrupted, “You’ve been on the Wanderer, you’ve talked with them — Who are they? What are they doing? What do they want?”

Paul said: “We haven’t time to try to answer any questions like that. As I was about to say, our…well, captress…wants us to assure ourselves that you survived the tidal waves and that you’re all safe. That’s half the reason for this…call.”

“We’re safe,” Margo said faintly, “as far as anyone on Earth is.”

“Our whole party’s survived so far,” Beardy amplified, “except for Rudolph Brecht, who was killed in a mountain accident.”

“Brecht?” Paul questioned him doubtfully, frowning.

“You remember; we called him Doc,” Margo explained.

“Of course,” Paul said, “and we called that funny old crackpot the Ramrod and Professor Hunter Beardy. Excuse me. Professor.”

“Of course,” Hunter said impatiently. “What’s the other reason for the call?”

Don said: “To let you know that if everything works out right, we’ll be landing at Vandenberg Two in a few hours, probably in my moon ship.”

“At least Don will,” Paul added. “We have to stay up here in space now. The Wanderer may be in danger, there’s an emergency developing.”

“The Wanderer, in danger?” Margo repeated incredulously, almost sardonically. “Emergency developing? What do you call what’s been happening the last two days?”