"I'm back."531Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡggW7lwtWze
"You sure are. Come in."
Cox stepped out of the afternoon, into the Kirk house, and followed Janice along a hallway.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked, stopping beside the small built-in bar in the living room.
"I would indeed."
"Scotch?"
"And a little ice."
She fixed two drinks, and handed him one. 'You haven't found what you're looking for," she said. "You don't feel right about bothering me again. But there are just one or two more questions you'd like to ask. I t's something persona, and then you won't bug me anymore."
"Very neat," he said, smiling at her. "When I was a kid there was a guy on TV who could read minds like that. Letterman was his name." He drank some of his drink.
Janice, watching him, seated herself in an armchair. "You're up to something, Mr. Cox," she said. "You want my help, but you won't tell me why you need my help."
"You're a very smart person."
"I am, but you're avoiding an answer."
Slumping onto a sofa, he said, "Okay, I'm a guy who drinks more than he should sometimes and gets into more trouble than he should. I tend to see things not quite like most other people do. Maybe there's a different drummer somewhere in my background. Anyway, I've got a hunch. Right now I'm working on a lalapalooza of a hunch. Something wrong is going on, and I think I'm starting to see what it is."
Janice said, "Just what are you after, anyway?"
"Something damn important," he told her. "I'm sure it is, because they keep trying to kill me."
"What?"
He held up a hand. "Didn't mean to bring that up," Cox said hurriedly. "Only people who suspect they're being plotted against are goofy. But two times lately? That's no coincidence."
"I don't see what...."
"Trust me awhile, on the rest of the details, ma'am. But please don't think I'm crazy."
"You're not crazy, but you're annoyingly mysterious."
"I think maybe I'm taking a hell of a risk telling you any of this," he said, after taking in some more scotch. "The thing is, I don't think your husband is the kind of man who makes mistakes. No matter how far away he is. I think he was trying to send a message to you."
Janice was leaning forward now. "You keep talking about Jim in the present tense, as if you think he's still alive." She hesitated. "Do you?"
Cox avoided her eyes. "Trust me a little longer, huh? Let me ask the questions, 'kay?"
Gradually leaned back in the chair. "Let's see---You think Jim was trying to send a message to me when he made that mistake about the trips."
"It wasn't a mistake," said Cox. "Now, what was he doing in Tunisia?"
"Nothing special," she answered. "He was on a goodwill mission to that country, if I remember right. Special request from the State Department, or some such thing."
"What did he do on that mission?"
"Nothing that stands out in my memory, Mr. Cox. He was given a tour of the country by the Tunisian president----shook hands with the locals----watched 20th Century Fox make a movie on location there----brought back some souvenir film footage, one reel's worth."
Cox brightened. "Do you have that footage? And can I see it?"
"It's downstairs in the rumpus room. Jim filed it in a tin box." She was frowning. "How does this tie in with...."
"Right now, I have to tell you, I may be clutching at the proverbial straws," admitted Cox, getting up. "But you've humored me this far. Don't quit now."
Janice stood. "All right, come on down to the rumpus room."
Two robots, a gold-colored humanoid robot and a cannister-type wheeled robot that stood about one meter tall, stole methodically across the barren wastes of the Tunisian desert. The golden robot looked left and right constantly, as if it were in a hopeless state of confusion.
"You're looking at C-3PO and R2D2, two of the principle characters of the movie Fox was making over there. Star Wars, it was called," Janice explained in the darkness, as the color film wound its way through the projector.
A shot of a young child being fitted in a black cassock with two bandoliers crossing his chest.
A young blonde-haired man in a white kimono-like costume mugged before the camera. He was joined in the shot by a bespectacled bearded man in a smart business suit and then, ultimately, by Kirk himself, neatly clad in his Air Force dress uniform.
"Jim got a big kick out of watching them make this silly science-fiction film," Janice said, as the footage flickered out and ended. "He never knew it took so much time just to do one simple scene. He told me he'd never have the patience for anything like that."
She crossed the darkened and turned on the lights. "He was very critical of TV for a while after that. The most impressive stunts didn't impress him. He said no matter how real something looked, it was probably a fake."
Hikaru Sulu's words came back to Cox. In his mind, Cox heard him say again, "We did not see a man land on Mars. "Mother of God," he said as he rose to his feet, almost hopping.
"What is it, Mr. Cox? What's the matter?"
"He talked about going to a place he really hadn't been," Cox said, mostly to himself. "Where he really had been was a place where they could make something fake look real! Something like----a Mars landing!"
"Mr. Cox, you're beginning to scare me," said Janice. "What are you getting at?"
Impulsively, Cox bobbed up to her and kissed her on the forehead. "You'll be the first to know," he said. "Now I really have to get back to work. Thanks."531Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4b8rAQhlR
Before Janice could reply, the reporter was bounding up the rumpus room steps and out the front door.
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