I wonder. Can he get out?
Edie Keller said to her brother, “What did you do to scare him like you did? He was really scared.”
From within her the familiar voice said, “I was someone he used to know, a long time ago. Someone dead.”
“Oh,” she said, “so that’s it. I thought it was something like that.” She was amused. “Are you going to do any more to him?”
“If I don’t like him,” Bill said, “I may do more to him, a lot of different things, maybe.”
“How did you know about the dead person?”
“Oh,” Bill said, “because—you know why. Because I’m dead, too.” He chuckled, deep down inside her stomach; she felt him quiver.
“No you’re not,” she said. “You’re as alive as I am, so don’t say that; it isn’t right.” It frightened her.
Bill said, “I was just pretending; I’m sorry. I wish I could have seen his face. How did it look?”
“Awful,” Edie said, “when you said that. It turned all inward, like a frog’s. But you wouldn’t know what a frog looks like either; you don’t know what anything looks like, so there’s no use trying to tell you.”
“I wish I could come out,” Bill said plaintively. “I wish I could be born like everybody else. Can’t I be born later on?”
“Doctor Stockstill said you couldn’t.”
“Then can’t he make it so I could be? I thought you said—”
“I was wrong,” Edie said. “I though he could cut a little round hole and that would do it, but he said no.”
Her brother, deep within her, was silent, then.
“Don’t feel bad,” Edie said. “I’ll keep on telling you how things are.” She wanted to console him; she said, “I’ll never do again like I did that time when I was mad at you, when I stopped telling you about what’s outside; I promise.”
“Maybe I could make Doctor Stockstill let me out,” Bill said.
“Can you do that? You can’t.”
“I can if I want.”
“No,” she said. “You’re lying; you can’t do anything but sleep and talk to the dead and maybe do imitations like you did. That isn’t much; I can practically do that myself, and a lot more.”
There was no response from within.
“Bill,” she said, “you know what? Well, now two people know about you—Hoppy Harrington does and Doctor Stockstill does. And you used to say nobody would ever find out about you, so you’re not so smart. I don’t think you’re very smart.”
Within her, Bill slept.
“If you did anything bad,” she said, “I could swallow something that would poison you. Isn’t that so? So you better behave.”
She felt more and more afraid of him; she was talking to herself, trying to bolster her confidence. Maybe it would be a good thing if you did die, she thought. Only then I’d have to carry you around still, and it—wouldn’t be pleasant; I wouldn’t like that.
She shuddered.
“Don’t worry about me,” Bill said suddenly. He had become awake again or maybe he had never been asleep at all; maybe he had just been pretending. “I know a lot of things; I can take care of myself. I’ll protect you, too. You better be glad about me because I can—well, you wouldn’t understand. You know I can look at everyone who’s dead, like the man I imitated. Well, there’re a whole lot of them, trillions and trillions of them and they’re all different. When I’m asleep I hear them muttering. They’re still all around.”
“Around where?” she asked.
“Underneath us,” Bill said. “Down in the ground.”
“Brrr,” she said.
Bill laughed. “It’s true. And we’re going to be there, too. And so is Mommy and Daddy and everybody else. Everybody and everything’s there, including animals. That dog’s almost there, that one that talks. Not there yet, maybe; but it’s the same. You’ll see.”
“I don’t want to see,” she said. “I want to listen to the reading; you be quiet so I can listen. Don’t you want to listen, too? You always say you like it.”
“He’ll be there soon, too,” Bill said. “The man who does the reading up in the satellite.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t believe that; are you sure?”
“Yes,” her brother said. “Pretty sure. And even before him—do you know who the ‘glasses man’ is? You don’t, but he’ll be there very soon, in just a few minutes. And then later on—” He broke off. “I won’t say.”
“No,” she agreed. “Don’t say, please. I don’t want to hear.”
Guided by the tall, crooked mast of Hoppy’s transmitter, Eldon Blaine made his way toward the phocomelus’ house. It’s now or never, he realized. I have only a little time. No one stopped him; they were all at the Hall, including the phocomelus himself. I’ll get that radio and nap it, Eldon said to himself. If I can’t get him at least I can return to Bolinas with something. The transmitter was now close ahead; he felt the presence of Hoppy’s construction—and then all at once he was stumbling over something. He fell, floundered with his arms out. The remains of a fence, low to the ground.
Now he saw the house itself, or what remained of it. Foundations and one wall, and in the center a patched together cube, a room made out of debris, protected from rain by tar paper. The mast, secured by heavy guy wires, rose directly behind a little metal chimney.
The transmitter was on.
He heard the hum even before he saw the gaseous blue light of its tubes. And from the crack under the door of the tar-paper cube more light streamed out. He found the knob, paused, and then quickly turned it; the door swung open with no resistance, almost as if something inside were expecting him.
A friendly, intimate voice murmured, and Eldon Blaine glanced around, chilled, expecting to see—incredibly—the phocomelus. But the voice came from a radio mounted on a work bench on which lay tools and meters and repair parts in utter disorder. Dangerfield, still speaking, even though the satellite surely had passed on. Contact with the satellite such as no one else had achieved, he realized. They even have that, up here in West Marin. But why was the big transmitter on? What was it doing? He began to look hastily around… .
From the radio the low, intimate voice suddenly changed; it became harsher, sharper. “Glasses man,” it said, “what are you doing in my house?” It was the voice of Hoppy Harrington, and Eldon stood bewildered, rubbing his head numbly, trying to understand and knowing on a deep, instinctive level that he did not—and never really would.
“Hoppy,” he managed to say. “Where are you?”
“I’m here,” the voice from the radio said. “I’m coming closer. Wait where you are, glasses man.” The door of the room opened and Hoppy Harrington, aboard his phocomobile, his eyes sharp and blazing, confronted Eldon. “Welcome to my home,” Hoppy said caustically, and his voice now issued from him and from the speaker of the radio both. “Did you think you had the satellite, there on that set?” One of his manual extensions reached out, and the radio was shut off. “Maybe you did, or maybe you will, someday. Well, glasses man, speak up. What do you want here?”
Eldon said, “Let me go. I don’t want anything; I was just looking around.”
“Do you want the radio, is that it?” Hoppy said in an expressionless voice. He seemed resigned, not surprised in the least.
Eldon said, “Why is your transmitter on?”
“Because I’m transmitting to the satellite.”
“If you’ll let me go,” Eldon said, “I’ll give you all the glasses I have. And they represent months of scavenging all over Northern California.”
“You don’t have any glasses this time,” the phocomelus said. “I don’t see your briefcase, anyhow. But you can go, though, as far as I’m concerned; you haven’t done anything wrong, here. I didn’t give you the chance,” He laughed in his brisk, stammering way.
Eldon said, “Are you going to try to bring down the satellite?”
The phocomelus stared at him.
“You are,” El
don said. “With that transmitter you’re going to set off that final stage that never fired; you’ll make it act as a retro-rocket and then it’ll fall back into the atmosphere and eventually come down.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Hoppy said, finally. “Even if I wanted to.”
“You can affect things at a distance.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m doing, glasses man.” Wheeling his ’mobile past Eldon, the phocomelus sent an extension thrusting out to pick up an object from his work bench. “Do you recognize this? It’s a reel of recording tape. It will be transmitted to the satellite at tremendously high speed, so that hours of information are conveyed in a few moments. And at the same time, all the messages which the satellite has been receiving during its transit will be broadcast down to me the same way, at ultra high speed. This is how it was designed to work originally, glasses man. Before the Emergency, before the monitoring equipment down here was lost.”
Eldon Blaine looked at the radio on the work bench and then he stole a glance at the door. The phocomobile had moved so that the door was no longer blocked. He wondered if he could do it, if he had a chance.
“I can transmit to a distance of three hundred miles,” Hoppy was saying. “I could reach receivers up and down Northern California, but that’s all, by transmitting direct. But by sending my messages to the satellite to be recorded and then played back again and again as it moves on—”
“You can reach the entire world,” Eldon said.
“That’s right,” Hoppy said. “There’s the necessary machinery aboard; it’ll obey all sorts of instructions from the ground.”
“And then you’ll be Dangerfield,” Eldon said.
The phocomelus smiled and stammered, “And no one will know the difference. I can pull if off; I’ve got everything worked out. What’s the alternative. Silence. The satellite will fall silent any day, now. And then the one voice that unifies the world will be gone and the world will decay. I’m ready to cut Dangerfield off any moment, now. As soon as I’m positive that he’s really going to cease.”
“Does he know about you?”
“No,” Hoppy said.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Eldon said. “I think Dangerfield’s been dead for a long time, and it’s actually been you we’ve been listening to.” As he spoke he moved closer to the radio on the work bench.
“That’s not so,” the phocomelus said, in a steady voice. He went on, then, “But it won’t be long, now. It’s amazing he’s survived such conditions; the military people did a good job in selecting him.”
Eldon Blaine swept up the radio in his arms and ran toward the door.
Astonished, the phocomelus gaped at him; Eldon saw the expression on Hoppy’s face and then he was outside, running through the darkness toward the parked police cart. I distracted him, Eldon said to himself. The poor damn phoce had no idea what I was going to do. All that talk— what did it mean? Nothing. Delusions of grandeur; he wants to sit down here and talk to the entire world, receive the entire world, make it his audience … but no one can do that except Dangerfield; no one can work the machinery in the satellite from down here. The phoce would have to be inside it, up there, and it’s impossible to—
Something caught him by the back of the neck.
How? Eldon Blaine asked himself as he pitched face-forward, still clutching the radio. He’s back there in the house and I’m out here. Action at a distance … he has hold of me. Was I wrong? Can he really reach out so far?
The thing that had hold of him by the neck squeezed.
XI
Picking up the first mimeographed sheet of the West Marin News & Views, the little twice-monthly newspaper which he put out, Paul Dietz scrutinized critically the lead item, which he had written himself.
BOLINAS MAN DIES OF BROKEN NECK
Four days ago Eldon Blaine, a glasses man from Bolinas, California, visiting this part of the country on business, was found by the side of the road with his neck broken and marks indicating violence by someone unknown. Earl Colvig, Chief of the West Marin Police, has begun an extensive investigation and is talking to various people who saw Blaine that night.
Such was the item in its entirety, and Dietz, reading it, felt deep satisfaction; he had a good lead for this edition of his paper—a lot of people would be interested, and maybe for the next edition he could get a few more ads. His main source of income came from Andy Gill, who always advertised his tobacco and liquor, and from Fred Quinn, the pharmacist, and of course he had several classifieds. But it was not like the old days.
Of course the thing he had left out of his item was the fact that the Bolinas glasses man was in West Marin for no good purpose; everyone knew that. There had even been speculation that he had come to nap their handy. But since that was mere conjecture, it could not be printed.
He turned to the next item in terms of importance.
DANGERFIELD SAID TO BE AILING
Persons attending the nightly broadcasts from the satellite report that Walt Dangerfield declared the other day that he “was sick, possibly with an ulcerous or coronary condition,” and needed medical attention. Much concern was exhibited by the persons at the Foresters’ Hall, it was further reported. Mr. Cas Stone, who informed the News & Views of this, stated that as a last resort his personal specialist in San Rafael would be consulted, and it was discussed without a decision being reached that Fred Quinn, owner of the Point Reyes Pharmacy, might journey to Army Headquarters at Cheyenne to offer drugs for Dangerfield’s use.
The rest of the paper consisted of local items of lesser interest; who had dined with whom, who had visited what nearby town … he glanced briefly at them, made sure that the ads were printed perfectly, and then began to run off further sheets.
And then, of course, there were items missing from the paper, items which could never be put into print. Hoppy Harrington terrified by seven-year-old child, for instance. Dietz chuckled, thinking of the reports he had received about the phoce’s fright, his fit right out in public. Mrs. Bonny Keller having another affair, this time with the new school teacher, Hal Barnes … that would have made a swell item. Jack Tree, local sheep rancher, accuses unnamed persons (for the millionth time) of stealing his sheep. What else? Let’s see, he thought. Famous tobacco expert, Andrew Gill, visited by unknown city person, probably having to do with a merger of Gill’s tobacco and liquor business and some huge city syndicate as yet unknown. At that, he frowned. If Gill moved from the area, the News & Views would lose its most constant ad; that was not good at all.
Maybe I ought to print that, he thought. Stir up local feeling against Gill for whatever it is he’s doing. Foreign influences felt in local tobacco business … I could phrase it that way. Outside persons of questionable origin seen in area. That sort of talk. It might dissuade Gill; after all, he’s a newcomer—he’s sensitive. He’s only been here since the Emergency. He’s not really one of us.
Who was this sinister figure seen talking to Gill? Everyone in town was curious. No one liked it. Some said he was a Negro; some thought it was radiation burns—a war-darky, as they were called.
Maybe what happened to that Bolinas glasses man will happen to him, Dietz conjectured. Because there’s too many people here who don’t like outside foreign influences; it’s dangerous to come around here and meddle.
The Eldon Blaine killing reminded him, naturally, of the Austurias one… although the latter had been done legally, out in the open, by the Citizens’ Council and Jury. Still, there was in essence little difference; both were legitimate expressions of the town’s sentiments. As would be the sudden disappearance from this world of the Negro or war-darky or whatever he was who now hung around Gill— and it was always possible that some retaliation might be taken out on Gill as well.
But Gill had powerful friends; for instance, the Kellers. And many people were dependent on his cigarettes and liquor; both Orion Stroud and Cas Stone bought from him in huge quantity. So probably Gill was safe.
But not the darky, Dietz realized. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes. He’s from the city and he doesn’t realize the depth of feeling in a small community. We have integrity, here, and we don’t intend to see it violated.
Maybe he’ll have to learn the hard way. Maybe we’ll have to see one more killing. A darky-killing. And in some ways that’s the best kind.
Gliding down the center street of Point Reyes, Hoppy Harrington sat bolt-upright in the center of his ’mobile as he saw a dark man familiar to him. It was a man he had known years ago, worked with at Modern TV Sales & Service; it looked like Stuart McConchie.
But then the phoce realized that it was another of Bill’s imitations.
He felt terror, to think of the power of the creature inside Edie Keller; it could do this, in broad daylight, and what did he himself have to counter it? As with the voice of Jim Fergesson the other night he had been taken in; it had fooled him, despite his own enormous abilities. I don’t know what to do, he said to himself frantically; he kept gliding on, toward the dark figure. It did not vanish.
Maybe, he thought, Bill knows I did that to the glasses man. Maybe he’s paying me back. Children do things like that.
Turning his cart down a side street he picked up speed, escaping from the vicinity of the imitation of Stuart McConchie.
“Hey,” a voice said warningly.
Glancing about, Hoppy discovered that he had almost run over Doctor Stockstill. Chagrined, he slowed his ’mobile to a halt. “Sorry.” He eyed the doctor narrowly, then, thinking that here was a man he had known in the old days, before the Emergency; Stockstill had been a psychiatrist with an office in Berkeley, and Hoppy had seen him now and then along Shattuck Avenue. Why was he here? How had he happened to decide on West Marin, as Hoppy had? Was it only coincidence?