Operation Stinky

by Clifford D. Simak

  "Where is this farm?" asked Ernie.

  "Out west of the air base," said Slade.

  The farmer was waiting for us at the barnyard gate. He jumped in when Slade stopped. "The car's still there," he said. "I been watching. It hasn't come out."

  "Any other way it could get out?"

  "Nope. Woods and fields is all. That lane is dead end."

  Slade grunted in satisfaction. He drove down the road and ran the police car across the mouth of the lane, blocking it entirely. "We walk from here," he said.

  "Right around that bend," the farmer told us.

  We walked around the bend and saw it was Betsy, all right. "That's my car," I said.

  "Let's scatter out a bit," said Slade. "It might start shooting at us." He loosened the gun in his holster.

  "Don't you go shooting up my car," I warned him, but he paid me no mind.

  Like he said, we scattered out a bit, the four of us, and went toward the car. It seemed funny that we should be acting that way, as if Betsy was an enemy and we were stalking her.

  She looked the same as ever, just an old beat-up jalopy that had a lot of sense and a lot of loyalty. And I kept thinking about how she always got me places and always got me back.

  Then all at once she charged us. She was headed in the wrong direction and she was backing up, but she charged us just the same.

  She gave a little leap and was running at full speed and going faster every second and I saw Slade pull his gun.

  I jumped out, in the middle of the lane and waved my arms. I didn't trust that Slade. I was afraid that if I couldn't get Betsy stopped, he'd shoot her full of holes.

  But Betsy didn't stop. She kept right on charging us and she was going faster than an old wreck like her had any right to go.

  "Jump, you fool!" shouted Ernie. "She'll run over you!"

  I jumped, but my heart wasn't in the jump. I thought that if things had come to the pass where Betsy'd run me down there wasn't too much left for me to go on living for.

  I stubbed my toe and fell flat on my face, but even while I was falling, I saw Betsy leave the ground as if she was going to leap over me. I knew right away that I'd never been in any danger, that Betsy never had any intention of hitting me at all.

  She sailed right up into the sky, with her wheels still spinning, as if she was backing up a long, steep hill that was invisible.

  I twisted around and sat up and stared at her and she sure was a pretty sight. She was flying just like an airplane. I was downright proud of her.

  Slade stood with his mouth open and his gun hanging at his side. He never even tried to fire it. He probably forgot that he even had a gun in his hand.

  Betsy went up above the treeline and the sun made her sparkle and gleam—I'd polished her only the week before last—and I thought how swell it was she had learned to fly.

  It was then I saw the jet and I tried to yell a warning for Betsy, but my mouth dried up like there was alum in it and the yell wouldn't come out.

  It didn't take more than a second, probably, although it seemed to me that days passed while Betsy hung there and the jet hung there and I knew they would crash.

  Then there were pieces flying all over the sky and the jet was smoking and heading for a cornfield off to the left of us.

  I sat there limp in the middle of the lane and watched the pieces that had been Betsy falling back to earth and I felt sick.

  It was an awful thing to see.

  The pieces came down and you could hear them falling, thudding on the ground, but there was one piece that didn't fall as fast as the others. It just seemed to glide.

  I watched, wondering why it glided while all the other pieces fell and I saw it was a fender and that it seemed to be rocking back and forth, as if it wanted to fall, too, only something held it back.

  It glided down to the ground near the edge of the woods. It landed easy and rocked a little, then tipped over. And when it tipped over, it spilled something out of it. The thing got up and shook itself and trotted straight into the woods. It was the friendly skunk!

  By this time, everyone was running. Ernie was running for the farmhouse to phone the base about the jet and Slade and the farmer were running toward the cornfield, where the jet had ploughed a path in the corn wide enough to haul a barn through.

  I got up and walked off the lane to where I had seen some pieces falling. I found a few of them—a headlight, the lens not even broken, and a wheel, all caved in and twisted, and the radiator ornament. I knew it was no use. No one could ever get Betsy back together.

  I stood there with the radiator ornament in my hand and thought of all the good times Betsy and I had had together—how she'd take me to the tavern and wait until I was ready to go home, and how we'd go fishing and eat a picnic lunch together, and how we'd go up north deer hunting in the fall.

  While I was standing there, Slade and the farmer came down from the cornfield with the pilot walking between them. He was sort of rubber-legged and they were holding him up. He had a glassy look in his eyes and he was babbling a bit.

  When they reached the lane, they let loose of him and he sat down heavily.

  "When the hell," he asked them, "did they start making flying cars?"

  They didn't answer him. Instead, Slade yelled at me, "Hey, Pop! You leave that wreckage alone. Don't touch none of it."

  "I got a right to touch it," I told him. "It's my car."

  "You leave it alone! There's something funny going on here. That junk might tell us what it is if no one monkeys with it."

  So I dropped the radiator ornament and went back to the lane.

  The four of us sat down and waited. The pilot seemed to be all right. He had a cut above one eye and some blood had run down across his face, but that was all that was the matter with him. He asked for a cigarette and Slade gave him one and lit it.

  Down at the end of the lane, we heard Ernie backing the police car out of the way. Pretty soon he came walking up to us. "They'll be here right away." He sat down with us. We didn't say anything about what had happened. I guess we were all afraid to talk.

  In less than fifteen minutes, the air base descended on us.

  First there was an ambulance and they loaded the pilot aboard and left in a lot of dust.

  Behind the ambulance was a fire rig and behind the fire rig was a jeep with the colonel in it. Behind the colonel's jeep were other jeeps and three or four trucks, all loaded with men, and in less time that it takes to tell it, the place was swarming.

  The colonel was red in the face and you could see he was upset. After all, why wouldn't he be? This was the first time a plane had ever collided in mid-air with a car.

  The colonel came tramping up to Slade and he started hollering at Slade and Slade hollered right back at him and I wondered why they were sore at one another, but that wasn't it at all. That was just the way they talked when they got excited.

  All around, there was a lot of running here and there and a lot more hollering, but it didn't last too long. Before the colonel got through yelling back and forth with Slade, the entire area was ringed in with men and the situation was in Air Force hands.

  When the colonel finished talking with Slade, he walked over to me.

  "So it was your car," he said. The way he said it, you'd thought it was my fault.

  "Yes, it was," I told him, "and I'm going to sue you. It was a darn good car."

  The colonel went on looking at me as if I had no right to live then suddenly seemed to recognize me. "Say, wait a minute," he said. "Weren't you in to see me the other day?"

  "I sure was. I told you about my skunks. It was one of them that was in Old Betsy."

  "Hold up there, old-timer," said the colonel. "You lost me. Let's hear that again."

  "Old Betsy was the car," I explained, "and the skunk was her. When your jet crashed into it, he rode a fender down."

  "You mean the skunk—the fender—the…"

  "It just sort of floated down," I finished telling him.
<
br />   "Corporal," the colonel said to Slade, "have you further use for this man?"

  "Just drunkenness," said Slade. "Not worth mentioning."

  "I'd like to take him back to the base with me."

  "I'd appreciate it," Slade said in a quivery kind of voice.

  "Come on, then," said the colonel and I followed him to jeep.

  We sat in the back seat and a soldier drove and he didn't waste no time. The colonel and I didn't talk much. We just hung on and hoped that we'd live through it. At least, that's the way I felt.

  Back at the base, the colonel sat down at his desk pointed at a chair for me to sit in. Then he leaned back studied me. I was sure glad I had done nothing wrong, for way he looked at me, I'd just have had to up and confess it if I had.

  "You said some queer things back there," the colonel started. "Now suppose you just rear back comfortable in that chair and tell me all about it, not leaving out a thing."

  So I told him all about it and I went into a lot of detail to explain my viewpoint and he didn't interrupt, but just kept listening. He was the best listener I ever ran across.

  "Let's get a few points down," he said. "You say the car had never operated by itself before?"

  "Not that I know of," I answered honestly. "It might have practiced while I wasn't looking, of course."

  "And it never flew before?"

  I shook my head.

  "And when it did both of these things, there was this skunk of yours aboard?"

  "That's right."

  "And you say this skunk glided down on a fender after the crash?"

  "The fender tipped over and the critter ran into the woods."

  "Don't you think it's a little strange that the fender should glide down when all the other wreckage fell kerplunk?"

  I admitted that it did seem slightly strange.

  "Now about this skunk. You say it purred?"

  "It purred real pretty."

  "And waved its tail?"

  "Just like a dog," I said.

  The colonel pushed the pad away and leaned back in his chair. He crossed his arms and sort of hugged himself. "As a matter of personal knowledge," he told me, "gained from years of boyhood trapping, I can tell you that no skunk purrs or ever wags its tail."

  "I know what you're thinking," I said, indignant, "but I wasn't that drunk. I'd had a drink or two to while away the time while I was waiting for the jet. But I saw the skunk real plain and I knew he was a skunk and I can remember that he purred. He was a friendly cuss. He acted as if he liked me and he…"

  "Okay," the colonel said. "Okay."

  We sat there looking at one another. All at once, he grinned. "You know," he said, "I find quite suddenly that I need an aide."

  "I ain't joining up," I replied stubbornly. "You couldn't get me within a quarter mile of one of them jets. Not if you roped and tied me."

  "A civilian aide. Three hundred a month and keep."

  "Colonel, I don't hanker none for the military life."

  "And all the liquor you can drink."

  "Where do I sign?" I asked.

  And that is how I got to be the colonel's aide.

  I thought he was crazy and I still think so. He'd been a whole lot better off if he'd quit right there. But he had an idea by the tail and he was the kind of gambling fool who'd ride a hunch to death.

  We got along just fine, although at times we had our differences. The first one was over that foolish business about confining me to base. I raised quite a ruckus, but he made it stick.

  "You'd go out and get slobbered up and gab your head off," he told me. "I want you to button up your lip and keep it buttoned up. Why else do you think I hired you?"

  It wasn't so bad. There wasn't a blessed thing to do. I never had to lift my hand to do a lick of work. The chow was fit to eat and I had a place to sleep and the colonel kept his word about all the liquor I could drink.

  For several days, I saw nothing of him. Then one afternoon, I dropped around to pass the time of day. I hadn't more than got there when a sergeant came in with a bunch of papers in in hand. He seemed to be upset.

  "Here's the report on that car, sir," he said.

  The colonel took the papers and leafed through a few of them. "Sergeant, I can't make head nor tail of this."

  "Some of it I can't, either, sir."

  "Now this?" said the colonel, pointing.

  "That's a computer, sir."

  "Cars don't have computers."

  "Well, sir, that's what I said, too. But we found the place where it was attached to the engine block."

  "Attached? Welded?"

  "Well, not exactly welded. Like it was a part of the block. Like it had been cast as a part of it. There was no sign of welding."

  "You're sure it's a computer?"

  "Connally said it was, sir. He knows about computers. But it's not like any he's ever seen before. It works on a different principle than any he has seen, he says. But he says it makes a lot of sense, sir. The principle, that is. He says…"

  "Well, go on!" the colonel yelled.

  "He says its capacity is at least a thousand times that of the best computer that we have. He says it might not be stretching your imagination too far to say that it's intelligent."

  "How do you mean—intelligent?"

  "Well, Connally says a rig like that might be capable of thinking for itself, sir."

  "My God!" the colonel said.

  He sat there for a minute, as if he might be thinking. Then he turned a page and pointed at something else.

  "That's another part, sir," the sergeant said. "A drawing of the part. We don't know what it is."

  "Don't know!"

  "We never saw anything like it, sir. We don't have any idea what it might be for. It was attached to the transmission, sir."

  "And this?"

  "That's an analysis of the gasoline. Funny thing about that, sir. We found the tank, all twisted out of shape, but there was some gas still left in it. It hadn't…"

  "But why an analysis?"

  "Because it's not gasoline, sir. It is something else. It was gasoline, but it's been changed, sir."

  "Is that all, Sergeant?"

  The sergeant, I could see, was beginning to sweat a little. "No, sir, there's more to it. It's all in that report. We got most all the wreckage, sir. Just bits here and there are missing. We are working now on reassembling it."

  "Reassembling…"

  "Maybe, sir, pasting it back together is a better way to put it."

  "It will never run again?"

  "I don't think so, sir. It's pretty well smashed up. But if it could be put back together whole, it would be the best car that was ever made. The speedometer says 80,000 miles, but it's in new-car condition. And there are alloys in it that we can't even guess at."

  The sergeant paused. "If you'll permit me, sir, it's a very funny business."

  "Yes, indeed," the colonel said. "Thank you, Sergeant. A very funny business." The sergeant turned to leave. "Just a minute," said the colonel.

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm sorry about this, Sergeant, but you and the entire detail that was assigned to the car are restricted to the base. I don't want this leaking out. Tell your men, will you? I'll make it tough on anyone who talks."

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant said, saluting very polite, but looking like he could have slit the colonel's throat.

  When the sergeant was gone, the colonel said to me: "Asa, if there's something that you should say now and you fail to say it and it comes out later and makes a fool of me, I'll wring your scrawny little neck."

  "Cross my heart," I said.

  He looked at me funny. "Do you know what that skunk was?"

  I shook my head.

  "It wasn't any skunk," he said. "I guess it's up to us to find out what it is."

  "But it isn't here. It ran into the woods."

  "It could be hunted down."

  "Just you and me?"

  "Why just you and me when there are two thousand men r
ight on this base?"

  "But…"

  "You mean they wouldn't take too kindly to hunting down a skunk?"

  "Something like that, Colonel. They might go out, but they wouldn't hunt. They'd try not to find it."

  "They'd hunt if there was five thousand dollars waiting for the man who brought the right one in."

  I looked at him as if he'd gone off his rocker.

  "Believe me," said the colonel, "it would be worth it. Every penny of it."

  I told you he was crazy.

  I didn't go out with the skunk hunters. I knew just how little chance there was of ever finding it. It could have gotten clear out of the county by that time or found a place to hole up where one would never find it.

  And, anyhow, I didn't need five thousand. I was drawing down good pay and drinking regular.

  The next day, I dropped in to see the colonel. The medical officer was having words with him.

  "You got to call it off!" the sawbones shouted.

  "I can't call it off," the colonel yelled. "I have to have that animal."

  "You ever see a man who tried to catch a skunk barehanded?"

  "No, I never have."

  "I got eleven of them now," the sawbones said. "I won't have any more of it."

  "Captain," said the colonel, "you may have a lot more than eleven before this is all over."

  "You mean you won't call it off, sir?"

  "No, I won't."

  "Then I'll have it stopped."

  "Captain!" said the colonel and his voice was deadly.

  "You're insane," the sawbones said. "No court martial in the land…"

  "Captain."

  But the captain did not answer. He turned straight around and left.

  The colonel looked at me. "It's sometimes tough," he said.

  I knew that someone had better find that skunk or the colonel's name was mud.

  "What I don't understand", I said, "is why you want that skunk. He's just a skunk that purrs."

  The colonel sat down at his desk and put his head between his hands. "My God," he moaned, "how stupid can men get?"

  "Pretty stupid," I told him, "but I still don't understand…"

  "Look," the colonel said, "someone jiggered up that car of yours. You say you didn't do it. You say no one else could have done it. The boys who are working on it say there's stuff in it that's not been even thought of."