"Perish the idea," Hicks returned, concentrating on his stomach.

"We owe a lot to Mrs. Morgan. We like Stella just fine, and Ron's Lisa is a great girl. We want to make sure they're okay, wherever they are. Not like they've been spirited off to the Nevada test site to be used as guinea pigs or something, y'know?"

Whether Morris was suggesting this or dismissing it as a possibility, Hicks couldn't decide.

"So what do you think they've got in Furnace Creek?" Forrest asked. "Mike the garage boy says they've got a dead Russian pilot. That why you're here—to scoop everybody on a dead Russian pilot?"

"I don't think that's what they have," Hicks said.

"So what is it, then? What would bring ol’ Crockerman out here?"

Hicks thought for a moment about the possible unpleasant effects of discussing visitors from space with these men. He could almost sympathize with any government efforts to keep such things secret.

Yet Australia was loaded with men like these: tough, resourceful, valiant, but not particularly imaginative or brilliant. Why would Australia trust public reaction, and not the United States?

"I'm not sure," he said. "I've come out here on a hunch, pure and simple."

"Hunches are never pure and simple," Forrest shot back. "You're a smart man. You've come out here for a reason."

"Mrs. Morgan seems to think you're important," Morris said.

"Well ..."

"You a doctor?" Flagg asked, looking as if he might need some medical assistance.

"I'm a writer. I have a Ph.D. in biological science, but I'm not an M.D."

"We get all sorts of Ph.D.'s in Shoshone," Morris said. "Geologists, archaeologists, ethnologists—study Indians, you know. Sometimes they come into the Crow Bar and sit down and we get into some real interesting conversations. We're not just a bunch of desert rats."

"Didn't think you were," Hicks responded. Oh?

"All right. Frank?"

"Coming up on Furnace Creek shortly."

Hicks looked through the side window and saw tan and white sand and patches of scrub, HO-scale dirt roads and tracks. Then he saw the highway. Forrest banked the Comanche again. Hicks's stomach kept its discipline, but Flagg moaned. "You got a bag?" he asked. "Please."

"You can keep it down," Morris assured him. "Hold up on the aerobatics, Frank."

"There it is," Forrest said. He inclined the plane so Hicks was staring practically straight down at a cluster of buildings spread among rust-brown rocks, copses of green trees and low hills. He could make out a golf course spreading lush green against the waste, a tiny airstrip and an asphalt parking lot filled with dark cars and trucks, and rising from the parking lot, a green two-seat Army Cobra helicopter.

"Shit," Forrest said, pulling back sharply on the wheel. The plane's engines screamed and the Comanche swung around like a leaf in a strong wind.