Gift From The Stars Read Online Free

designs. And they’re the ones we need to watch out for.”
    By that time they were preparing to land in Phoenix, and there was no more time for speculation.

    Joel Simpson lived in a small town in northern Arizona. Adrian had rented a car in Phoenix. He and Mrs. Farmstead had argued about that and the need for Adrian to produce a driver’s license, until Adrian had pointed out that his name had never been associated with the book or Mrs. Farmstead’s store or her telephone inquiries. They had driven north on Highway 17, through deserts and national forests, past Indian reservations, through Flagstaff, and close by the Lowell Observatory where much of the world’s apprehensions about aliens had started with Percival Lowell’s observations of the “canals” on Mars and his speculations about intelligent Martians nourishing their dying planet. Adrian wanted to stop, but Mrs. Farmstead vetoed the idea.
    “The fewer marks we leave along the trail, the more difficulty anyone will have trying to follow us,” she said.
    They came to a stop, toward evening, in a little town not far from the Grand Canyon. Mrs. Farmstead wanted to make a side trip to see the gorge carved out by the Colorado River over the ages. “I’ve always wanted to see it,” she said. “I never thought I’d be this close, and I may not have another chance.”
    Adrian vetoed that notion. “We don’t have time. Maybe in the morning.” But he knew, and she knew, that if their mission were successful they would be leaving in a hurry.
    Mrs. Farmstead looked at the town with what Adrian interpreted as dismay. There was a business section two blocks long, with a grocery store, an official building of some kind, two filling stations, one with a café attached, and several vacant storefronts. This was a town that wasbeing emptied of its citizens like water evaporating from a desert pond. “In a town this size,” she said, “strangers will stick out like weeds in a flower bed. And all we have for an address is a post-office box.”
    “We’ll stop at one of the filling stations for gas and ask for a motel or a bed-and-breakfast,” Adrian said. “Say we’re going to head on over to the Grand Canyon in the morning.”
    Mrs. Farmstead looked at him with admiration. “Nothing like sticking close to the truth,” she said.
    They chose the nearest filling station. A talkative clerk told them about the best bed-and-breakfast this side of Flagstaff, run by his aunt Isabel and if they told her that Sylvester had sent them, she’d be sure to treat them right. “And give him a fee for touting the place,” Mrs. Farmstead told Adrian later. Now she said to the clerk, “Isn’t this the place where that fellow publishes those UFO books?”
    The clerk looked blank.
    “I’ve read some of them,” Mrs. Farmstead said. “Simpson, I think his name is?”
    “Never heard of him,” the clerk said.
    His aunt was more helpful. “Simpson? He must be the odd duck who believes in flying saucers. I’ve heard he had something to do with books. He lives the other side of town.”
    “How would we find it?” Adrian asked.
    Mrs. Farmstead added quickly, “If we wanted to look him up, maybe say ‘hello.’”
    “I’d have to draw you a map,” Isabel said. “No house numbers in a town like this.”
    Adrian looked from the map to Mrs. Farmstead. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe we’ll drive past there on our way to the Canyon in the morning.” She gave Adrian a nudge.
    “We’re sort of night-owls,” he said. “Do you suppose we could have a key to the outside door in case we come in late?”
    “A key?” Isabel said. “Nobody locks their doors around here.”
    Adrian looked at her with astonishment.
    “How wonderful!” Mrs. Farmstead said. “Come on, dear.” They had introduced themselves as mother and son, and now, being maternal and filial respectively, they linked arms and walked out into the narrow street, redolent with the smell of desert wind and