Black Locust Letters Read Online Free PDF Page A

listen to both hosts and still
perform her morning job, so she had to content herself with
listening to one on one day, and the other the next. She looked
like she'd been jumbling her sleep schedule around, though, so by
the time she had Sunday off, she just fell into a day's
sleep.
    Monday after her show, she evaluated the phrases she'd found
in the break room while everyone else attended to their own duties.
There wasn't much to look at. The codes weren't a standard set of
words, nor a numerical or skip code; it was sort of a combination
of everything. Mostly it was inside understanding stemming from a
common knowledge. Maybe a wave talker and an interpreter would read
the same copy of a book, and the talker would make references which
only applied to that particular book. Nothing was more devastating
to the troops during the World War as when they lost their
interpreter, since they could try to guess what the wave talker was
saying, but in the end they probably would come to the wrong
conclusions.
    The
phone rang in Mr. Gresley's office. His voice came through a crack
in the door. Betty thought of closing it all the way, but she was
already on the other side of it, waiting for the bathroom to become
available.
    “ Hello, this is Mr. Gresley.”
    The
toilet door was locked. Was someone actually in there or did Welch
lock it and then leave out the window again? It had been a while
since he'd done something like grape gelatin in the coffee pot, so
he was due for another trick. Still, it felt awkward to knock and
ask if anyone occupied the toilet. Mr. Gresley grunted.
    “ Well as may be, given the circumstances. ….yes, that. Know
anything?”
    Betty heard a horrendous fart on the other side of the door
and edged away from the toilet.
    “ I
can't say I have much to add to that, General, other than it's a
damn shame. He was the brightest in the field.”
    Was
Mr. Gresley talking to her father about Tom? Betty couldn't believe
that, but neither could she imagine they were talking about
anything else. Mr. Gresley sighed at something the General
said.
    “ If
Area 51's testing goes bungled, we may have a chance to renew that
pledge. Maybe a second nuclear winter would put this strife behind
us ... or yes, that could be, too...I hear them, I hear them, work
never stops for the likes of us. Yeah-huh. Bye.”
    The
receiver gave a soft thunk as Mr. Gresley put it down. He groaned
and his chair creaked as he leaned back in it, then Betty heard the
scrape of boots as they propped up on a desk.
    Betty no longer needed to use the toilet. In any case, even
the hallway was getting fumigated with a stench like rotten eggs
and dog fart. Instead she went to the break room, gathered up her
things, and pondered what to do over a cup of coffee.
    There was only one thing to do: Find a way back inside. Betty
rubbed her eyes. Did she want to intentionally go back into the
wave talking world? Yes, she'd accidentally found herself twisted
into a corner there before, and she'd paid dearly to extract
herself from it.
    She
poured herself a bit of cream, and it was there that she discovered
what Welch had done: He had strained off some cottage cheese and
dropped it by spoonfuls into the cream stored in the icebox. So
when Betty poured the cream into her coffee, the curds floated
around the top of the cup and it seemed the cream had gone off.
Being as unwilling to buy new cream as the next person, Betty
tossed out her coffee and put the cream back in its place,
pretending to have not noticed the curds. None too pleased, she
washed out the mug. An idea formed, one which could replace her
coffee and answer the questions about Area 51 fermenting in her
mind.
    At
the reception telephone, she dialled Pearl's number.
     

Chapter 5
    The
waitress clinked down a coffee and cinnamon roll oozing with cream
cheese frosting. Betty, pale-faced, barely muttered a word of
appreciation before the waitress was gone. She glanced at the clock
on the wall. Pearl said she'd