"Who's going to show up?"
"I don't know," said Norton.
"Let's get going, then," said Kathy. "I want a look at that car. Take some pictures of it."
"Go straight down the street," said Norton. "Follow the road down to the river. Not far. There's a police car with red lights. That's where you'll find it. I'll get hold of Stuffy and put him to work. See you later on."
At the end of the first block, they spotted the flashing red lights of the patrol car. When they reached the car, a patrolman stepped out of the shadows to meet them.
"Newspaper people," Kathy told him. "The Minneapolis Tribune."
"Could I see identification, please?"
Kathy took her wallet out of her bag, handed him her press card. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket, directed a beam of light on it.
"Katherine Foster," he said. "I have seen your byline."
"The man with me is Chet White. He's our photographer."
"Okay," said the officer. "Not much to see here. The thing, whatever it is, is across the river."
"How about the car?" asked Chet.
"It's still here."
"How about taking some pictures?"
The patrolman hesitated. Then he said, "I guess that would be all right. Don't touch it, though. The FBI has asked us to leave it as it is."
"What has the FBI to do with it?" asked Kathy.
"Ma'am, I wouldn't know," said the officer. "But that's the word I got. Some of them are headed up here."
They went around the patrol car and walked a short distance down the road. The crushed car lay at the end of the bridge—or rather, at the end of where the bridge had been. The bridge was gone. The ear was flattened out, as if it had been put through a rolling mill.
"Is there anyone in it?" asked Kathy.
"We don't think so, Ma'am."
Chet was taking pictures, walking around the flattened machine, the camera's light mechanism winking.
"Any identification?" asked Kathy. "A license plate, perhaps?" The officer shrugged. "I suppose there is, but not visible. It's Chevrolet. Several years old. Can't be sure of the model."
"No idea of who was in it? What might have happened to them?"
"Probably someone stopped to fish the pool under the bridge. Supposed to be some big trout in there. People often do that, I am told."
"But if that's the case," said Kathy, "wouldn't you think whoever it was would have showed up by now to tell about his big adventure?"
"That does seem strange," said the patrolman. "He might be in the river, though. The bridge collapsed when it hit. A timber might have hit him."
"Someone must have made an effort to find him." "I suppose," the patrolman said. "I don't know about that." "Did you see the thing that fell?" asked Kathy.
"Briefly. Before dark closed in. It had already crossed the river before I got here. It was there across the river. A few hundred feet beyond the river. Just sitting there. And big."
"It still was on the road?"
"On it, but extending over it on each side. Many times wider than the road. It had knocked down a few small trees."
"It's still sitting there, right now?"
"I'm almost certain it is. If it moved, it would knock down more trees. There'd be some noise. It's been quiet over there ever since I arrived."
"What's up ahead? Up the road, I mean?"
"Ma'am, that is a primitive forest area over there across the river. A stand of primeval pines. Big trees. Some of them hundreds of years old. The thing, whatever it is, is trapped, I tell you. It won't be able to get through the trees. It has no place to go."
"Any signs of life in it?"
"Not that I saw. Just a huge black box. Like a huge, awkward army tank. Except it seemed to have no treads. I can't imagine how it moves."
"And that was your impression of it? A big army tank?"
"Well, no. More like a big black box. A big oblong box that someone had painted the deepest possible black."
"Is there any way we could get across the river?" Kathy asked. "Not a prayer," the patrolman told her. "There's this deep pool under the bridge and fast water at both ends of it."
"A boat, maybe?"
"You could ask around," the patrolman said. "Probably could get across the pool in a boat. If you can find a boat."
"Up here," said Chet, "everyone's got a boat."
"I wish you wouldn't try," said the patrolman. "I'd have check on my radio. Probably I'd be told not to let you go."
"Any other way to get around?"
"Not on the roads. The roads are all closed."
"How about the people over across the river?"
"There aren't any people. That's a primitive forest area there. Miles of forest. No one lives there."
"Officer," said Kathy, "could I have your name? Could I quote some of what you've told me?"
Proudly, the officer gave her his name. "But go easy on the quotes," he said.
7. WASHINGTON, D.C
Porter stood and watched the press corps enter the room. They seemed more subdued than usual and there were more of them than he had expected. After all, this was a late hour for a briefing.
They filed in and took seats, quietly waiting.
"I must beg your indulgence for the lateness of the hour," he told them. "Perhaps we should have waited until tomorrow morning, but I thought some of you might want to know what we know. This, however, may not be a great deal more than you know.
"Basically, we only know that an object fell out of the sky near the town of Lone Pine in northern Minnesota. The Pine River flows just north of the town and the object fell so that it bridged the river, one end of it on the near bank, the other on the far bank. Curiously enough, it fell on a bridge that spanned the river. The bridge was demolished and a ear parked at the near end of it was crushed. No one, at the time, seems to have been in the car. Just before dark, the object moved across the river and, apparently, is still there.
"I think there is one additional matter to report. \Whether this ties up with the object that fell in Minnesota we don't know, but tracking stations have discovered a previously unknown and rather large object in orbit about the Earth."
The New York Times asked, "Mr. Secretary, you say large. Can you tell us how large and describe the orbit?"
"Mr. Smith," said Porter, "no determination as to size has been made as yet. The best estimate is that it may measure some miles across. As to orbit, I think it is what is called a synchronous orbit. Its height is about 20,000 miles and its speed such as to match the revolution of the Earth. At the moment, as I understand it, it is hanging somewhere over Iowa.~~
"Dave," asked the Chicago Tribune, "you say the new object has been detected by tracking stations. Does that mean it has just now been discovered after achieving orbit, or was it seen earlier before it established orbit?"
"My impression is that it was discovered, already in an established orbit, within just the last few hours."
"Would we be justified in speculating that it might be a mother ship from which came the object that fell at Lone Pine?"
"That, I think," said Porter, "must be up to you—whether you so speculate or not. At this early stage, I'm not engaging in that sort of speculation. Such speculation would imply that both the object in orbit and the one that fell in Minnesota are from some other area of space. This we don't know as yet."
"From your preliminary estimate of the mass of the object in orbit, however, the size of it would seem to rule out it having been launched from Earth."
"Yes, I would think so, but, as I say, there is as yet no certainty."
The Washington Post asked, "You said that the Minnesota object moved. I think you said it fell so as to bridge a river. Then moved across the river."
"Yes, that's correct."
"Can you tell us how it moved? How would you characterize its movement?"