"This is worth more to the networks than to that rag," he muttered. "It's red-hot."
He got to work developing print thirteen.
At the local CBS affiliate, the news director was having none of it. "It's a still picture. We're TV. We need tape. Still pictures make viewers reach for their clickers."
"It shows the exact instant before the ray hit the Reliant," Red said urgently.
"You got the moment of the explosion?"
"No. But I got some great after shots. Shows the thing actually hissing and spitting like a volcano."
"We might be able to use them. Leave them, and we'll get back to you."
"It's the before shot that's important. Everyone knows the Reliant was torched. But no one know what did it. This picture may be the only clue."
The news director got interested. Grabbing the picture, he looked at it and made assorted faces. "What am I looking for?"
"Letters in the sky."
He looked closer and saw the white configurations against the background star constellations just behind the Reliant.
"Those?"
"Yeah. See? They spell out a word, probably in an alien language."
"Looks like plain English to me."
"Look closer. The N is backward."
"Okay, it's backward. And it's a little p not a big P. So what?"
"But the M and the P face frontward," Rust said excitedly.
"I repeat my so?"
"That means it's not an M and a P. Not our M or P."
"What are you saying, Rust?"
"I think this is a signal from Mars."
"Oh, get off it."
"Okay, maybe not Mars, but some language from beyond our earth. Maybe this was a warning. Stop launching shuttles or you're all toast."
The CBS news director cast a skeptical eye in Travis Rust's specific direction. "M, backward N and P say all that?"
"They could," Rust said hopefully.
"They could be the call letters for Martian TV, too.... Who did you say you work for, Rust?"
"I'm free-lance," Rust said quickly.
"Who's your best client?"
Rust swallowed. "The Enquirer, " he admitted.
Print thirteen went sailing toward the exit.
"Follow it out. No sale."
At the ABC and NBC affiliates, the doors were slammed in his face before Rust could barge past the lobby guards.
"We were warned about you," he was told at both locations.
That left Fox.
At Fox, they were very interested. Very.
"Our ratings on the alien-autopsy special were so high we had to show it all over again the next week," the Fox news broadcaster said gleefully as he shuffled through Rust's stack of photographs.
"Then you'll take it?"
"We've got a news organization now. Of course we'll take it. But it's gotta be a world Fox exclusive. And you come along as part of the package."
"Package?"
"These are stills. I need a talking-head expert to tell the story, and you're the only game in town."
"Twenty thousand bucks," Rust said quickly.
"Deal."
Fox had a news special on the air within the hour. Travis Rust found himself happily sweating on national television, explaining what he was doing in the marshlands outside the Kennedy Space Center, what he saw, what he didn't see and his theory on the alien letters that appeared in the sky before an unknown power had puddled the orbiter Reliant.
The program went out live, and Rust had visions of fame and fortune. Not to mention a career change. The media was always hungry for telegenic experts. Travis Rust would be only too happy to pontificate on the extraterrestrial threat to Earth-a subject on which he was an unqualified expert, having read the National Enquirer every week since 1984.
That was before the three men in the charcoal black suits and impenetrable sunglasses burst in on midtelecast and confiscated every photo in sight. Travis Rust, too.
"Who are you people?" the hapless interviewer was saying as Rust was picked up by his elbows and escorted off camera with his shoe heels barely dragging the floor.
"Government agents," one of the trio barked, failing to display ID.
"They're the men in black!" Travis Rust screamed. "They cover up stuff like this!"
The newscaster followed with a microphone. "What?"