COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1962 by Joan Hunter Holly.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidepress.com
CHAPTER ONE
The strident call of brass instruments and the thump-thump-thump of bass drums bloomed out across the college football field. The crowd shouted and clapped as the band paraded to the fifty-yard line, but Lincoln Hosier could only piece the scene together from the sound of it. Below the grandstand, down in the shadows of the seats where the sun only arced through from the ramp holes, he waited in a long, impatient line, as impatient as the rest, and doubting the real need for hot dogs and coffee.
Glorified messenger boy was all he was; fetch and carry, chauffeur the car, buy the tickets. He had invited Kelly to this game. She had accepted him. But Wes was always there, too. He could never shake Wes. The three of them together; that was how it always had been, and how it probably always would be.
He moved up, nearing the counter where hot dogs turned on miniature spits and giant coffee urns dribbled brown liquid into cups. He didn’t like this day. The sun was out, the stadium was colorful, the atmosphere was exciting with the ball game, but he didn’t like the day.
He scratched his head and laughed at himself. He had been trouble-shooter at the Space Research Lab too long. He saw unrest in everything. Even in his day off.
He reached the counter and ordered three hot dogs and three coffees, then dutifully followed instructions with the mustard and ketchup. As he spread Wes’, he wondered why it was bothering him so much? He had known and accepted the score long ago. Kelly was a bone, an attractive bone tossed between himself and Wes, and they had to fight to come out top dog. But he had little to fight with. In anything else, any crisis at the lab—strikebreaking, fear, nerves, danger—he was purely confident. But with Kelly and Wes, he knew he was second best. Wes had polish and charm, a dark, lean handsomeness that women admired. He had none of those things. His own blondness was the screwed-up sort; nose too big, eyes too palely blue, body strong and tall, but brawny.
He picked up the cardboard tray and headed for the ramp, striding upward into the sunlight. As he climbed to his seat, and saw Kelly and Wes together, he shoved the resentment aside and managed a smile.
His seat was on the aisle, and he plunked himself down on it. “Lunch is served,” he said, picking up the hot dogs one at a time, and passing them out. “Mustard for Kelly—mustard and ketchup for Wes—the works for me.”
“You didn’t put onions on yours?” Kelly made a face. Even a face was becoming to her, Linc thought. Her black hair gleamed in the sun and her eyes were an unbelievable shade of green. “I’ll have to put Wes between you and me and let him bear the brunt of it.”
“Not me,” Wes protested. “I’m not that gallant.”
The band was just filing back into the stands, and a shout rose as the home team came storming out of the pit.
“Was it a good show?” Linc asked around a bite of hot dog.
“Fine,” Kelly answered. “What we saw of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Kelly’s eyes were teasing, and Linc didn’t know whether to smile with her or let the resentment build again.
“We were talking most of the time,” Wes explained. “There was an article in the morning paper that needed some discussion.”
Wes always knew what to say and when to say it. It was part of his polish; like his education, his books and his dog. He was an expert at handling people. Personnel Manager, they called him, but the better title would have been Genius Pacifier, Temperament Sorter, Spreader of Salve.
“Did you see the article, Linc?” Kelly wasn’t teasing any more.
“I didn’t read the paper.”
“It was weird,” she said. “It seems that two days ago a lot of people here in town heard a terrible roaring sound, and rushed outdoors to see what it was, and saw a great lighted thing zooming through the sky. It was low, and looked like it might be coming down.”
“And,” Linc added in a mocking tone, “it scared the daylights out of the idiots because they thought we were shooting spooks off at the lab.”
“You always have a ready answer, and no imagination,”
Kelly complained. “I should have known better than to mention it.”
“It doesn’t take imagination to see lights rocketing through the sky, Kelly,” Linc defended himself. “It only takes idiocy—a bunch of nuts in town seeing their own fears made manifest. They’re all scared of the lab, you know that. They’re scared of our reactor and our research. If they saw a shooting star, they’d be sure it was a bomb we’d made to gobble them up.”
“No one said anything about a bomb!” Kelly was stubborn. “They only reported what they saw. They don’t have your cocksureness about everything!” Kelly stood up.
“Where are you going?” Linc asked her. “You’re not mad?”
“No, I’m not mad. Just disgusted. Wes managed to discuss the article without making me feel like a moron. Anyway, I’m just going across the aisle. I see some friends and I want to say hello. Let me by, please?”
He stood to let her pass, liking her scowl, yet uneasy with it because all of the little fury in it was directed at him.
When she was out of earshot, Wes said, “You got the Kelly Adams temper up that time, friend. You should have stepped a little more softly. That article frightened her. If you had paid attention to the way she was talking, you might have seen that fact. You’ve got a black mood on?”
“I guess so. I feel tense. I have all day.”
“You should have stayed to watch the half-time show and relaxed a bit,” Wes offered. “It was quite a spectacle.”
“I had other things to do, remember? I had to play butler.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Wes bounced the challenge back. “You offered to go after the coffee. What’s the matter with you, Linc? You act like you want to fight. We’re friends too long for that.”
It was true. They had shared the same lab-rented house for two years now, and if he had any friend in the world, it was Wes. But he couldn’t shake the belligerence that had grown in the dimness beneath the stands. Things had to break soon. He had to know soon.
“It’s Kelly, isn’t it?” Wes asked when he didn’t answer. “Kelly and me,” Linc admitted. “I always seem to be running around after her, buying her things, fetching things, while you sit beside her and make time. Things have got to change. We’ve both known her for a year now, and it’s time one of us moved ahead and one of us moved back.”
“Kelly doesn’t want a clear road. She wants things just the way they are.”
“You want things the way they are.”
Wes absorbed the barb without anger. “If you think she’s choosing between us, you’re wrong. She’s merely sitting in the middle, enjoying the show, and grasping everything she can get from both of us. Kelly actually wants a millionaire. But she hasn’t got the courage to break free, throw everything she has in the ring, and go where the millionaires are. So she sticks with us. Two gullible, free-spending fools are better than one.”
Linc winced at the stark description. “And they call you a gentleman. Those are terrible things to say about her.”
“Even if they’re true?”
“Let’s not talk about it any more, all right?”
Wes was shaking his head, surprised. “At least I can finally claim proof that you’re more than the machine you’re reputed to be. There’s a hole in your ego, after all; a chip in your armor.”
“And I don’t like it either.”
“You should be glad