five paces. The end of the beam began to coalesce into a wide circle on the side of the ship.
Four more paces. The beam began to tighten and brighten, and then Morris began probing the surface looking for… something.
Ed realized he hadn’t called his mother in nearly two months.
It wasn’t really a big deal—they went much longer than that routinely, especially since the divorce. She’d been kind enough to wait until well after Ed had moved out and established a life of his own before telling both him and her husband—his father—how unhappy she was. A whirlwind divorce that devastated Ed’s dad, and bewildered Ed, resulted in her relocating to Florida, opening up a yarn store, and cohabitating with “aunt” Linda, a long-time friend of the family and (apparently) the lesbian lover of the former Mrs. Somerville. Then Dad died of congestive heart failure, because he never took care of himself, and that caused more than a little friction between Ed and his mom, but they patched that up a couple of years back and now he was used to hearing her voice semi-regularly.
She didn’t even know he was in Sorrow Falls! Sure, it was supposed to be something like a secret, but not a big secret, not necessarily. Not the kind of thing a man should have to keep from his mother. It wasn’t like he was going to tell her why he was there. He could say he was on vacation or something. But she’d get a kick out of it, knowing he was there, and he was standing right near the ship. Because in a way it was the ship that helped them reconnect. When it landed, and everyone thought the world was going to end, he picked up the phone and called her and ended up settling the mess that had gone on with dad and the divorce and everything else. She should know where he was standing.
He stopped, and turned around, pulling out his cell phone.
“Put that away,” Morris said.
“I was just going to…”
“Yeah, I know. You suddenly realized there was something much more important you should be doing right now, way more important than looking at the side of a piece of extraterrestrial technology. And you have to do that thing this very second.”
“I want to call my mother.”
“And you should. A boy should always call his mother. But not right now. Congratulations, you had your first intrusive thought. Now look where the beam is.”
“I…”
“Son, I’ve just become convinced I left the gun cabinet in my cabin in Nebraska unlocked. I’m about to drop everything to make some calls before someone gets hurt.”
“Who?”
“Sheriff’s a friend, he has keys and… dammit, look where the beam is.”
Ed did.
“I don’t see anything.”
Morris waved the beam around. “Look at the difference,” he said.
“Okay, there’s a patch, kind of. It’s a little brighter, I guess.”
“That’s right, and it’s not true anywhere else.”
It wasn’t far up the side of the ship, not really. It was at about chest height for an adult male.
“Nobody noticed this before?”
“I think maybe someone did but thought like you did, that it wasn’t anything, just a curiosity of shading or something. Or plant matter got on the ship.”
“Something could have come down with the last snow.”
“Maybe, but doubtful. Snow doesn’t stack up.”
One of the many minor curiosities of the ship was that snow melted off of it. Yet the heat was almost undetectable. It wasn’t so much that the ship generated warmth; it was that the snow failed to cool it.
“So there’s a splotch on the side of the ship.”
“Yeah.”
“Did it turn up because of the first anomaly?”
“Unknown.”
“I’m under-impressed.”
Morris grabbed Ed’s wrist and pulled him four paces closer.
“Look at it again,” Morris said.
Ed realized he wanted to call his mother because she was dying. She hadn’t said so, he had no evidence it was so, but it was as true as anything he’d ever felt. The damn ship wasn’t going anywhere; he could look at it
Four more paces. The beam began to tighten and brighten, and then Morris began probing the surface looking for… something.
Ed realized he hadn’t called his mother in nearly two months.
It wasn’t really a big deal—they went much longer than that routinely, especially since the divorce. She’d been kind enough to wait until well after Ed had moved out and established a life of his own before telling both him and her husband—his father—how unhappy she was. A whirlwind divorce that devastated Ed’s dad, and bewildered Ed, resulted in her relocating to Florida, opening up a yarn store, and cohabitating with “aunt” Linda, a long-time friend of the family and (apparently) the lesbian lover of the former Mrs. Somerville. Then Dad died of congestive heart failure, because he never took care of himself, and that caused more than a little friction between Ed and his mom, but they patched that up a couple of years back and now he was used to hearing her voice semi-regularly.
She didn’t even know he was in Sorrow Falls! Sure, it was supposed to be something like a secret, but not a big secret, not necessarily. Not the kind of thing a man should have to keep from his mother. It wasn’t like he was going to tell her why he was there. He could say he was on vacation or something. But she’d get a kick out of it, knowing he was there, and he was standing right near the ship. Because in a way it was the ship that helped them reconnect. When it landed, and everyone thought the world was going to end, he picked up the phone and called her and ended up settling the mess that had gone on with dad and the divorce and everything else. She should know where he was standing.
He stopped, and turned around, pulling out his cell phone.
“Put that away,” Morris said.
“I was just going to…”
“Yeah, I know. You suddenly realized there was something much more important you should be doing right now, way more important than looking at the side of a piece of extraterrestrial technology. And you have to do that thing this very second.”
“I want to call my mother.”
“And you should. A boy should always call his mother. But not right now. Congratulations, you had your first intrusive thought. Now look where the beam is.”
“I…”
“Son, I’ve just become convinced I left the gun cabinet in my cabin in Nebraska unlocked. I’m about to drop everything to make some calls before someone gets hurt.”
“Who?”
“Sheriff’s a friend, he has keys and… dammit, look where the beam is.”
Ed did.
“I don’t see anything.”
Morris waved the beam around. “Look at the difference,” he said.
“Okay, there’s a patch, kind of. It’s a little brighter, I guess.”
“That’s right, and it’s not true anywhere else.”
It wasn’t far up the side of the ship, not really. It was at about chest height for an adult male.
“Nobody noticed this before?”
“I think maybe someone did but thought like you did, that it wasn’t anything, just a curiosity of shading or something. Or plant matter got on the ship.”
“Something could have come down with the last snow.”
“Maybe, but doubtful. Snow doesn’t stack up.”
One of the many minor curiosities of the ship was that snow melted off of it. Yet the heat was almost undetectable. It wasn’t so much that the ship generated warmth; it was that the snow failed to cool it.
“So there’s a splotch on the side of the ship.”
“Yeah.”
“Did it turn up because of the first anomaly?”
“Unknown.”
“I’m under-impressed.”
Morris grabbed Ed’s wrist and pulled him four paces closer.
“Look at it again,” Morris said.
Ed realized he wanted to call his mother because she was dying. She hadn’t said so, he had no evidence it was so, but it was as true as anything he’d ever felt. The damn ship wasn’t going anywhere; he could look at it
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