--who in God's name had put him on the train?
He brooded for a while in a small coffee shop, but it got more and more
complicated. Since the aliens had not killed him, and in fact obviously
meant for him to go to Chicago and look up this man Bosco, there was
no way to understand the bombing of the pod, or the empty trucks, or
anything. Were there two kinds of aliens, the good guys and the bad
guys? That was possible. His mind opened up. If you accept the presence
of one alien, you might just as well accept dozens.
And that was quite a thought. As a matter of fact, how many aliens
were there, really? The whole darn world could be shot through with
aliens, skinny ones, fat ones, straight ones, bent ones, maybe all the
odd-looking people he knew were aliens. Maybe even, maybe Dundon was an
alien.
He looked around furtively. In a coffee shop, late at night and not a
very clean coffee shop, it is remarkable how thoroughly inhuman people
can look.
He left the shop.
Well, he had no way of knowing what was up, who was good or who was
bad. But a lot of men had died, and until he knew why, and who did
it, and how, and could protect himself, he was going to trust nobody.
He was not going to walk deserted streets in the middle of the night
looking for Bosco. He hailed a cab for the Statler Hotel. To his
relief, he found that there was a Statler in Chicago.
He was given a room for which he could not possibly pay if he stayed
here for any length of time, and he thought once more of Dundon.
He would have to call Dundon. He would explain the last few hours as
some kind of amnesia, during which he had gotten out of the drugstore
safely, bought some new clothes, read the alien's card, and boarded a
train for Chicago, all without knowing it.
Although that was the most logical explanation, there was an odd
feeling in his mind and he did not believe it. But he decided to tell
Dundon that anyway.
It was while he was making the call that the Faktors found him again.