Buddy Holly Is Alive And Well On Ganymede Part 32

Buddy grinned and nodded to us. "See you in the big time," he said.

The silver object sank lower, and lower, and Buddy melted into it, head to toes, until it touched the ground beside his guitar. Then it rose, pa.s.sed the image of Jupiter, and shot off the screen. A silver afterimage glowed for a moment before fading away.

All that was left was gray rock and dust, the impa.s.sive striped planet, empty clothes, black-framed gla.s.ses, and the woodgrain-and-white Stratocaster. SkyVue's speakers were silent.

We stood as silent as they. The only sound was the buzz of the Beechcraft's engine.

The picture on the movie screen became faceted, like a mosaic, and gradually dissolved into white light.The speakers crackled.

And the whiteness blossomed into Technicolor. John Wayne returned Natalie Wood to the bosom of her family, and then, satisfied that he had done a man's job, turned and strode away into the great Western desert. The music swelled, the cabin door closed, and the credits rolled.

The crowd, bathed in reflected warmth, stood mesmerized.

Then the credits vanished and were replaced by an ugly dog dancing on a bartop while pouring beer for a softball team. On a stage in the background, three women in gold bikinis sang, "It's the winner's brew/It's the one for you/Buy me one too/And you won't be blue/Oop-boop-be-do."

The crowd erupted, cheering, waving, laughing. They leaped into the air, hugged each other, rolled on the rocks, humped the speaker poles. Tiny TV screens flickered to life throughout the lot, and all of the pictures were different.

Regularly scheduled programming was back. G.o.d was in his Heaven, and all was right with the networks.

In the sky, a meteor flared and was gone.

William Willard's flock, including the Corps of Little David, forgot about their captured demons.

Whether they believed that their rally had defeated the Antichrist's broadcast, or whether they didn't care what had happened so long as TV was back to normal, I don't know. In either case, they were finished with SkyVue. One minute after the conclusion ofThe Searchers, scores of vehicles were trying to leave at both the exit and entrance. Although united in spiritual matters, the w.i.l.l.yites became divided in their cars, and they honked and cursed at each other.

I was swaying and would have fallen if Pete hadn't shown up to steady me. Gretchen, Boog, Sharon, and Bruce joined us, and I saw that although Bruce was holding his shoulder, he was standing without help.

"Well," Sharon said, looking around at the departing w.i.l.l.yites, "thank G.o.d for short attention spans."

"Or whoever the f.u.c.k's in charge," Boog said.

Ringo emerged from among the crowd's stragglers, dragging the Bald Avenger across the rocks to us.

The Avenger's body was limp, but as the Doberman released his coat collar at my feet, he looked up at me.

"All of you," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "are under arrest."

Gretchen raised an eyebrow at his torn pants. "Cute b.u.t.t," she said.

The Avenger closed his eyes and sighed. "Okay, forget it." He sounded relieved. And old, and tired.

Above us, the Bonanza's engine throttled back, and we watched as the airplane, illuminated by a diaper commercial, descended to land in the field east of the theater lot. Ringo bounded away and leaped over SkyVue's back fence to greet Laura and Mike. "Rotten kids," Pete said with pride.

I saw the plane come to a stop just short of the refinery fence, and then, my eyes stinging from a breeze full of oil-rich smoke, I looked away and down.

Several speaker poles away, Peggy Sue lay trampled on the white rocks. A black pool had formed beneath her. With Pete's help, I hobbled to her, and my friends followed. We left the Avenger behind.

My Ariel's chrome was bent, her headlight smashed. Her handlebars were twisted, her fuel tank crushed. Both tires were flat, and spokes jutted like exposed bones. Her drive chain had snapped and fallen from the sprockets.

All of the violence that had been aimed at me, she had taken upon herself. I heard distant, mechanical wailing.

"I'm so sorry, Oliver," Sharon said.

"Me too," Pete said. He was looking across the lot at the Oklahoma Kamikaze, which seemed intact except for its missing gla.s.s.

Boog squatted beside the bike and touched the carburetor, then grinned his usual grin. "Don't be sorry yet. My hands have the power to heal the sick and raise the dead." Hearing him say it, I knew that it was true.

Light snow began to fall as Mike, Laura, and Ringo ran to us. While the kids collected hugs from their father, the first carload of Authorities rolled through a jumble of civilian vehicles into SkyVue.

"I hope there's an ambulance," Sharon said, s.h.i.+vering as the snow came harder. "Bruce and Oliver need a doctor."

"Bulls.h.i.+t," Bruce said. "Just get me a G.o.dd.a.m.n pair of pliers to pull out the bone chips."

I laughed. Bruce had transformed since the last time I had seen him.

"You seem to be in a surprisingly good mood, Mr. Vale," Mike said, "for a man about to be taken into custody by the musclemen of bourgeois repression."

Gretchen glanced at the approaching car. "Uh, Oliver," she said, "the cops are coming."

My contacts were hurting me, so I removed them. "I know," I said, my hands before my face. "That makes it tough."

When I lowered my hands, the movie screen had gone black. The refinery flame blurred. I leaned back and opened my mouth so that I could catch the last snowflakes before the end of the world.

CATHY AND JEREMY They sat on the bench in the dark projection room, staying quiet long after the sirens had droned away and SkyVue was silent.

"It didn't turn out the way I expected," Cathy said at last.

"What way was that, love?"

"I don't know. I had a vague notion in this defective head that we could distract the crowd long enough to hustle Vale away. But when you couldn't get the projector working, and Vale had to do it himself...

things happened."

Jeremy patted her hand. "We couldn't have known that Holly was about to end the broadcast."

"Even if we had," Cathy said, "I wouldn't have guessed that a mob of the fleshbound would juststop like that."

"Me either. We didn't do a d.a.m.n thing to help Vale, and we didn't have to. I can't figure it."

There was a low chuckle from the doorway. "Can't, or won't? The truth is that you did do something to help him, but you aren't willing to admit it."

A light came on, and Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the cubicle, followed by Nikita Khrushchev.

Cathy and Jeremy stood. "Where the h.e.l.l have you two been?" Cathy demanded. "This mess was your fault-"

"-and when it hit the fan, you were gone," Jeremy concluded.

"We were around," Khrushchev said. "In fact, I b.u.t.ted in when Vale was about to die in a head-on collision, and again when he was being stoned." He glanced sidelong at Eisenhower. "Even though I wasn't supposed to."

Eisenhower smiled. "Oh, no? I swore that I wouldn't intervene, but I didn't say anything about you."

Khrushchev glowered. "You're a jerk!"

Eisenhower chuckled again. "Despite that, our job is finished, and we can return to noncorporeality."

"What do you mean, 'your job is finished'?" Cathy said. "If anything, the violence of tonight's mob, and of the mobs all over the world, has proven that the fleshbound have no right to Seeker status. You were wrong, and we were right."

Eisenhower raised an index finger. "Except that you two are already Seekers, and yet you also committed violence. You each leaped upon a man and forced him to the floor without considering that you might harm him."

"That was necessary!" Jeremy said.

"And spur-of-the-moment!" Cathy added.

Khrushchev gave them a stern look, and they bit their lower lips. "Gotcha," Eisenhower said.

"We tried another way first," Jeremy said. "You've got to give us that."

Eisenhower nodded. "Indeed. By projecting Holly's image-or rather, by helping Vale do so-you achieved our pro-flesh goal. In effect, you defeated yourselves."

Cathy crossed her arms and glared. "How's that?"

"First," Eisenhower said, "you proved that Seekers themselves still possess the capacity for violence.

How, then, can we deny Seeker status to the fleshbound on the grounds that they too possess this capacity?

"Second, you gave a crowd of the fleshbound a chance to prove that they possess qualities beyond violence. When they saw what was happening to Holly, their anger became wonder-which is precisely what started us on the path to becoming Seekers so many centuries ago."

"They were just drugged by television!" Cathy snapped.

Khrushchev shook his head, and his jowls quivered. "Regular programming didn't resume until after Holly left Ganymede. Besides, the subversion of violence didn't only occur here, but everywhere that Holly's departure was seen."

Jeremy made a noise in his throat. "Uh, Cath, maybe they're right. Maybe we-"

"No! the fleshbound don't deserve the galaxy. I won't be a party to giving it to them."

"You don't have to be," Eisenhower said. "Our faction has compromised: If we're right, and the fleshbound are worthy, this episode will persuade them to put aside their violence and let their wonder take them to Ganymede. Only then will they find the key to our existence as Seekers."

"It's hidden in the guitar," Khrushchev added.

Cathy and Jeremy looked at each other, then at the floor.

"Nick and I must be going now," Eisenhower said. "Thank you both for your help. We'd stay longer, but we're tired of the flesh." Smiling and waving, he left.

Khrushchev scratched his head. "This might be against the rules of party politics, but you guys look beat.

If you want to get out of those bodies without driving back to Topeka, you're welcome to join us. The device is in the refinery stack." He followed Eisenhower.

Jeremy scuffed a shoe. "You know, Cath, if the flesh-bound can't squelch their violence, they'll waste all of their off-earth technology on orbital war machines. They'll never get to Ganymede."

"Not for a long time, anyway," Cathy said. "Maybe we won."

"Maybe n.o.body won," Jeremy said.

They looked at each other again. "Let's gohome," they said together.

Three minutes later, four bright spheres rose from the refinery tower's flame, spiraled up to the snow clouds, and were gone.

epilogue.

Sunday, March 19, 1989.I never did make it to Lubbock, but that's okay. Lubbock is eternal.

After the events at SkyVue, the Authorities questioned my companions and released them. I, however, was kept in "protective custody" for ten days, first in Wichita and then in Was.h.i.+ngton, during which time representatives of the KBI, FCC, FBI, SEC, BIB, NSC, CIA (probably), DIA (possibly), and various other sets of initials took turns interrogating me. I was X-rayed, CAT-scanned, HTLV-tested, probed, poked, and prodded. They no doubt would have kept me forever if not for two things: I had become famous (network news crews pounced every time I was moved), and I was the client of one of the most obnoxious attorneys in the history of the profession. Not an evening pa.s.sed that Bruce's face didn't appear on the tube, yammering that I had committed no crime (other than Resisting Arrest, Interstate Flight, Attempted Kidnapping, Trespa.s.sing, and Disorderly Conduct, none of which he mentioned), that there was no evidence to suggest that I had, and that the Authorities had better brace themselves for one humongous monster daddy of a lawsuit.

Eventually, they had to kick me, but they made it clear that I had better be willing to cooperate if they should need me for anything. They didn't specify what "anything" might be, and so far, I haven't had to find out.

Bruce and Sharon brought me home on February 18, and I found my mother's house in a shambles (although in better shape than it would have been if Boog hadn't stayed there while I was in Was.h.i.+ngton).

The pieces of my SkyVue dish were strewn across the backyard; s.h.i.+ngles were missing from the roof; records and CDs were jumbled on the floors; and my black Stratocaster was smashed.

Beyond refiling the music, I did little to repair the damage. This was because Sharon told me that she detected signs of stress in my behavior, and that in order to avoid "problems" (i.e., a trip to the state hospital), I should take steps to purge myself. Such action might also help me, she said, to "integrate" my recent experiences with the rest of my life. I found it amusing that she a.s.sumed I would want to do that.

Nevertheless, I took her advice, and for the past thirty days I've been constructing what amounts to my own Volume I. Frankly, I don't feel much better; but it seems to have made Sharon happy.

All of my new friends, plus Boog's seventeen-year-old son, "Spud," arrived this past Friday to spend the weekend helping me put the house back together. Even better, Boog has completed the restoration of Peggy Sue. In fact, my knee is so much improved that I even rode the bike to Topeka yesterday to fetch some parts Laura needed for the earth station. The road felt as smooth as blue sky.

From here in my bedroom, I can hear Laura and "Spud" working on the SkyVue... Gretchen and Mike arguing about the Strategic Defense Initiative... Boog and Pete hammering s.h.i.+ngles... Bruce and Sharon struggling to make lunch in the Meltdown Machine... and Buddy singing "Listen to Me" on the living-room stereo. Ringo is lying on the floor beside my chair, chewing on an old railroad spike. I have gained a family, with all of the mingled love and squabbling implied therein. It seems a miracle that they all joined me at SkyVue when I needed them, and it seems an even greater miracle that they still haven't abandoned me. If I believed in Mother's "other world," I would say that somebody up there was taking care of me.

However, despite all that I've seen and heard, I am unwilling to follow in her footsteps that far. I have decided that my former neighbors, Cathy and Jeremy, were crazy. The Spirit Land, where warriors go after death, exists only in the movies.

But when a thirty-years-gone Texan appeared on TV and his grave was found empty, "death" became a relative term....

My Volume I is ending with good omens, I think: Bruce has turned out to be likable despite his annoying personality and repulsive eyebrows, and he and Sharon seem stronger in their Relations.h.i.+p. (Sharon, by the way, is embarking on research into the ma.s.s psychological effects of the Holly broadcast, and she claims to have already discovered one startling worldwide statistic. Despite the angry mobs, she says, there were actually fewer deaths by violence during that four-day period than during any comparable period throughout the preceding year.) Pete and Gretchen became engaged while repairing the Kamikaze. They have yet to have a fight, although that may be because Gretchen does all of her arguing with Mike.

Mike and his New Radicals are driving their local school board berserk. By May, they hope to have extended their influence north to Oklahoma City and west to Amarillo.

Laura has gotten over her crush on me and is making googoo eyes with "Spud." It will be interesting to see what develops, because she's going to MIT in the fall, and he's going to Baja to eat peyote.

Ringo is happy with his blue eye again.