Fred was surly. "Here we are—now what the hell was it that you wanted to see?"
I got out and stretched, then put my hands on my hips and looked around the clearing. It almost looked like Fred was right. There wasn't a damn thing to be seen. Brush and trees and knee-high grass and the two inch mosquitoes that only seem to come out at dusk. Then I saw what looked like a piece of paper by one of the trees. I ran over and picked it up. It was paper and yet not paper—it looked more like a fusion of paper and plastic with an odd kind of printing on it. I couldn't shake the idea that it was a scrap of some foreign paper. Then I looked around and saw where the grass was trampled and where a rough path led back through the woods.
I yelled, "I'll only be gone a minute!" and started out.
It was longer than a minute. It was the longest half hour in my life. The path wound between trees and through little gulleys and I had trouble following it because the sun was going down and shadows half hid the path. And then I came out in another clearing—a big clearing. It took me a minute to appreciate the fact that the center of the clearing wasn't a clearing so much as a depression. A large, neat, circular depression where small trees, bushes, and grass had been mashed flat to a pasty smear of green.
And then I saw other things. Bits of clothing—clothing made of cloth that I didn't recognize. More of the plastic-paper, some wrapped around lumps of what I imagined was food. I circled the clearing. The path I had taken was the only exit—or entrance.
And you're way ahead of me again, aren't you? Kelley had been right all along. The lights the old man had seen the night before were those of a ship from God only knew where. The young man with the bus had gone there earlier that evening to pick up his passengers.
The bus driver. The bus driver who had reminded me of a hundred other people I had known. Or two hundred. Or a thousand. And his curious-faced passengers, none of whom had gotten out to stretch their legs or buy a candy bar or chance a nickel in the coke machine or take advantage of the pause that refreshes.
I looked round the clearing again. Before they had gotten on the bus, they had changed clothes and then ... they had had a picnic.
Which I suppose was as good a way as any to start their first day on Earth.