"Right there. Near that red apple there." He pointed.
There were thousands of red apples, fit only for making pies if the
peeler had the patience to cut away the bad spots.
I followed his point and he was right. Nestled in among the trees was a
big bulk of a thing, brownish gray. It certainly wasn't anything that
had been in the woods before.
"Do you see any people?" I asked Harry.
"No. Let's go knock on their door."
"No!" I said. "Let's circle around and see what it looks like from the
other side."
We circled. I managed to tear my other shirt sleeve on a sticker that
also drew blood. Then for a while we made better progress along the bed
of a sunken, abandoned road. We had kept the spaceship on our left and
now I could see a huge clearing on the far side of it, strung over with
some kind of camouflage netting.
"There they are!" Harry said.
"Quiet!" I said, pulling him down behind the lip of the old road. I was
past caring about clothes now.
There were at least a dozen of them in the clearing. More were coming
out of the open hatch of the spaceship. Apparently they hadn't heard
us. I uncapped the telescope and looked.
They were wearing their native woolen cloaks and were setting up
furniture in the clearing, which had been divided into room-size
rectangles outlined on the bare ground with paint or strips of white
cloth.
In addition to the chairs, tables, desks and bookcases they had
a number of pieces of equipment which vaguely resembled movie or
television cameras.
"What are they doing, Uncle Sam?" Harry asked. "Let me look through the
telescope."
"I don't know. It looks as if they're building movie sets. Maybe the
walls will come later." I handed him the telescope.
"Look, they're coming out different now," Harry said, and I grabbed the
telescope back.
Those stepping out of the hatch now were wearing Earth-style clothes,
and not carrying anything. But not all of the clothes looked American.
There were men in wide-lapeled European suits, men in the white linen
suits of tropical countries, men in the jodhpurs or dhotis of the Asian
Indian, men in glittering military uniforms and men in drab, unadorned
military jackets worn by the leaders of some totalitarian countries.
They went to the various room-sized rectangles and sat or stood. No one
was talking.
Then I looked closely at their faces. I almost dropped the telescope.
I saw the Prime Ministers of England and India, the leader of the
United Arab Republic, the President of France and half a dozen other
premiers or presidents, ex-, present or potential.
Gouverneur Allison was there for the United States, as was Rupert
Marriner, the Secretary of State, and several other high administrative
officials.
I was watching the Soviet Union's top men come out when I heard a noise
behind us.
"Run!" I told Harry, getting up myself. "Run home and tell your daddy."