He stopped, and turned his head away. "I don't want to think about it," he said.

"You have to think about it."

"No."

He continued to look away for a moment, and then turned back to Hall. "They all died, did they?"

"Not all. One other survived." He nodded to the crib next to Jackson.

Jackson peered over at the bundle of blankets. "Who's that?"

"A baby."

"Baby? Must be the Ritter child. Jamie Ritter. Real young, is it?"

"About two months."

"Yep. That's him. A real little heller. Just like the old man. Old Ritter likes to kick up a storm, and his kid's the same way. Squalling morning, noon, and night. Family couldn't keep the windas open, on account of the squalling.

"Is there anything else unusual about Jamie?"

"Nope. Healthy as a water buffalo, except he squalls. I remember he was squalling like the dickens that night.

Hall said, "What night?"

"The night Charley Thomas brought the damned thing in. We all seen it, of course. It came down like one of them shooting stars, all glowing, and landed just to the north. Everybody was excited, and Charley Thomas went off to get it. Came back about twenty minutes later with the thing in the back of his Ford station wagon. Brand-new wagon. He's real proud of it."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, we all gathered around, looking at it. Reckoned it must be one of those space things. Annie figured it was from Mars, but you know how Annie is. Lets her mind carry her off, at times. The rest of us, we didn't feel it was no Martian thing, we just figured it was something sent up from Cape Canaveral. You know, that place in Florida where they shoot the rockets?"

"Yes. Go on."

"So, once we figured that out good and proper, we didn't know what to do. Nothing like that ever happened in Piedmont, you know. I mean, once we had that tourist with the gun, shot up the Comanche Chief motel, but that was back in '48 and besides, he was just a GI had a little too much to drink, and there were exterminating circumstances. His gal run out on him while he was in Germany or some damn place. Nobody gave him a bad time; we understood how it was. But nothing happened since, really. Quiet town. That's why we like it, I reckon."

"What did you do with the capsule?"

"Well, we didn't know what to do with it. Al, he said open 'er up, but we didn't figure that was right, especially since it might have some scientific stuff inside, so we thought awhile. And then Charley, who got it in the first place, Charley says, let's give it to Doc. That's Doc Benedict. He's the town doctor. Actually, he takes care of everybody around, even the Indians. But he's a good fella anyhow, and he's been to lots of schools. Got these degrees on the walls? Well, we figured Doc Benedict would know what to do with the thing. So we brought it to him.