and it would likely come to nothing, although with all the flurry about the need of extra runways, it was a meeting that the newsroom had to cover; Jay was at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, getting the story on the new cancer procedures that were being developed there; Campbell was still at city hall, piddling his time away at a park board meeting that, like the airport meeting, probably would fizzle out; Jones was out in South Dakota working on the Black Hills-Indian controversy, getting together material for a Sunday feature; Knight was at the Johnson murder trial; Williams was in the suburban town of Wayzata interviewing that old gal who claimed to be 102 years old (although she probably wasn't). Sloane was tied up with the oil spill at Winona. Christ, Garrison wondered, what would he do if a big story suddenly should break? Although that, he knew, was unlikely. It had been a bad day and was not improving.

He said to Jim Gold, the assistant city editor, "What does the budget look like, Jim?"

Gold looked at the sheet of paper in his typewriter. "Thin," he said. "Not much here, Johnny. Not really much at all."

A phone rang. Gold reached out, spoke into the mouthpiece softly.

"It's for you, Johnny," he said. "Line two."

Garrison picked up the phone at his desk, punched a button.

"Garrison," he said.

"Johnny, this is Frank Norton," said the voice at the other end. "Up at Lone Pine, remember?"

"Why, Frank," said Garrison, genuinely pleased, "how great to hear from you. Just the other day I was talking with some of the fellows here about you. Telling them about the great setup you had. Your own boss, the trout fishing at the edge of town. One of these days I'll come up, primed for some of those fish. How about it, Frank?"

"Johnny," said Norton, "I think I may have something for you.

"Frank, you sound excited. What is going on?"

"Just maybe," said Norton, "we may have a visitor from space. I can't be sure