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# 2024-09-28 - Kindergarten by Clifford D. Simak | |
> When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human | |
> life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist | |
> upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on | |
> Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to | |
> me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, | |
> has purpose. If the means were available, we could trace our | |
> ancestry--yours and mine–-back to the first blob of life-like | |
> material that came into being on the planet. The same thing could | |
> be done for the spider that spun [its] web in the grass, and of the | |
> grass in which the web was spun, the bird sitting in the tree and | |
> the tree in which [it] sits, the toad waiting for the fly beneath | |
> the bush, and for the fly and bush. We are all genetic [cousins]. | |
> The chain of life, tracing back to that primordial day of life's | |
> beginning, is unbroken... -- Clifford D. Simak | |
He went walking in the morning before the sun was up, down past the | |
old, dilapidated barn that was falling in upon itself, across the | |
stream and up the slope of pasture ankle-deep with grass and summer | |
flowers, When the world was wet with dew and the chill edge of night | |
still lingered in the air. | |
He went walking in the morning because he knew he might not have too | |
many mornings left; any day, the pain might close down for good and | |
he was ready for it--he'd been ready for it for a long time now. | |
He was in no hurry. He took each walk as if it were his last and he | |
did not want to miss a single thing on any of the walks--the | |
turned-up faces of the pasture roses with the tears of dew running | |
down their cheeks or the matins of the birds in the thickets that ran | |
along the ditches. | |
He found the machine alongside the path that ran through a thicket at | |
the head of a ravine. At first glance, he was irritated by it, for it | |
was not only unfamiliar, but an incongruous thing as well, and he had | |
no room in heart or mind for anything but the commonplace. It had | |
been the commonplace, the expected, the basic reality of Earth and | |
the life one lived on it which he had sought in coming to this | |
abandoned farm, seeking out a place where he might stand on ground of | |
his own choosing to meet the final day. | |
He stopped in the path and stood there, looking at this strange | |
machine, feeling the roses and the dew and the early morning bird | |
song slip away from him, leaving him alone with this thing beside the | |
path which looked for all the world like some fugitive from a home | |
appliance shop. But as he looked at it, he began to see the little | |
differences and he knew that here was nothing he'd ever seen before | |
or heard of--that it most certainly was not a wandering automatic | |
washer or a delinquent dehumidifier. | |
For one thing, it shone--not with surface metallic luster or the | |
gleam of sprayed-on porcelain, but with a shine that was all the way | |
through whatever it was made of. If you looked at it just right, you | |
got the impression that you were seeing into it, though not clearly | |
enough to be able to make out the shape of any of its innards. It was | |
rectangular, at a rough guess three feet by four by two, and it was | |
without knobs for one to turn or switches to snap on or dials to | |
set--which suggested that it was not something one was meant to | |
operate. | |
He walked over to it and bent down and ran his hand along its top, | |
without thinking why he should reach out and touch it, knowing when | |
it was too late that probably he should have left it alone. But it | |
seemed to be all right to touch it, for nothing happened--not right | |
away, at least. The metal, or whatever it was made of, was smooth to | |
the hand, and beneath the sleekness of its surface he seemed to sense | |
a terrible hardness and a frightening strength. | |
He took his hand away and straightened up, stepped back. | |
The machine clicked, just once, and he had the distinct impression | |
that it clicked not because it had to click to operate, not because | |
it was turning itself on, but to attract attention, to let him know | |
that it was an operating machine and that it had a function and was | |
ready to perform it. And he got the impression that for whatever | |
purpose it might operate, it would do so with high efficiency and a | |
minimum of noise. | |
Then it laid an egg. | |
Why he thought of it in just that way, he never was able to explain, | |
even later when he had thought about it. | |
But, anyhow, it laid an egg, and the egg was a piece of jade, green | |
with milky whiteness running through it, and exquisitely carved with | |
what appeared to be outre symbolism. | |
He stood there in the path, looking at the jade, for a moment | |
forgetting in his excitement how it had materialized, caught up by | |
the beauty of the jade itself and the superb workmanship that had | |
wrought it into shape. It was, he told himself, the finest piece that | |
he had ever seen and he knew exactly how its texture would feel | |
beneath his fingers and just how expertly, upon close examination, he | |
would find the carving had been done. | |
He bent and picked it up and held it lovingly between his hands, | |
comparing it with the pieces he had known and handled for years in | |
the museum. But now, even with the jade between his hands, the museum | |
was a misty place, far back along the corridors of time, although it | |
had been less than three months since he had walked away from it. | |
"Thank you," he said to the machine and an instant later thought what | |
a silly thing to do, talking to a machine as if it were a person. | |
The machine just sat there. It did not click again and it did not move. | |
So finally he left, walking back to the old farmhouse on the slope | |
above the barn. | |
In the kitchen, he placed the jade in the center of the table, where | |
he could see it while he worked. He kindled a fire in the stove and | |
fed in split sticks of wood, not too large, to make quick heat. He | |
put the kettle on to warm and got dishes from the pantry and set his | |
place. He fried bacon and drained it on paper toweling and cracked | |
the last of the eggs into the skillet. | |
He ate, staring at the jade that stood in front of him, admiring once | |
again its texture, trying to puzzle out the symbolism of its carving | |
and finally wondering what it might be worth. Plenty, he | |
thought--although, of all considerations, that was the least important. | |
The carving puzzled him. It was in no tradition that he had ever seen | |
or of which he had ever read. What it was meant to represent, he | |
could not imagine. And yet it had a beauty and a force, a certain | |
character, that tagged it as no haphazard doodling, but as the | |
product of a highly developed culture. | |
He did not hear the young woman come up the steps and walk across the | |
porch, but first knew that she was there when she rapped upon the | |
door frame. He looked up from the jade and saw her standing in the | |
open kitchen doorway and at first sight of her he found himself, | |
ridiculously, thinking of her in the same terms he had been thinking | |
of the jade. | |
The jade was cool and green and she was crisp and white, but her | |
eyes, he thought, had the soft look of this wondrous piece of jade | |
about them, except that they were blue. | |
"Hello, Mr. Chaye," she said. | |
"Good morning," he replied. She was Mary Mallet, Johnny's sister. | |
"Johnny wanted to go fishing," Mary told him. "He and the little | |
Smith boy. So I brought the milk and eggs." | |
"I am pleased you did," said Peter, "although you should not have | |
bothered, I could have walked over later. It would have done me good." | |
He immediately regretted that last sentence, for it was something he | |
was thinking too much lately--that such and such an act or the | |
refraining from an act would do him good when, as a matter of plain | |
fact, there was nothing that would help him at all. The doctors had | |
made at least that much clear to him. | |
He took the eggs and milk and asked her in and went to place the milk | |
in the cooler, for he had no electricity for a refrigerator. | |
"Have you had breakfast?" he asked. | |
Mary said she had. | |
"It's just as well," he said wryly. "My cooking's pretty bad. I'm | |
just camping out, you know." | |
And regretted that one, too. | |
Chaye, he told himself, quit being so damn maudlin. | |
"What a pretty thing!" exclaimed Mary. "Wherever did you get it?" | |
"The jade? Now, that's a funny thing. I found it." | |
She reached a hand out for it. "May I?" | |
"Certainly," said Peter. | |
He watched her face as she picked it up and held it in both hands, | |
carefully, as he had held it. | |
"You found this?" | |
"Well, I didn't exactly find it, Mary. It was given to me." | |
"A friend?" | |
"I don't know." | |
"That's a funny thing to say." | |
"Not so funny. I'd like to show you the--well, the character who gave | |
it to me. Have you got a minute?" | |
"Of course I have," said Mary, "although I'll have to hurry. Mother's | |
canning peaches." | |
They went down the slope together, past the barn, and crossed the | |
creek to come into the pasture. As they walked up the pasture, he | |
wondered if they would find it there, if it still was there--or ever | |
had been there. | |
It was. | |
"What an outlandish thing." said Mary. | |
"That's the word exactly," Peter agreed. | |
"What is it, Mr. Chaye?" | |
"I don't know." | |
"You said you were given the jade. You don't mean..." | |
"But I do," said Peter. | |
They moved closer to the machine and stood watching it. Peter noticed | |
once again the shine of it and the queer sensation of being able to | |
see into it--not very far, just part way, and not very well at that. | |
But still the metal or whatever it was could be seen into, and that | |
was somehow uncomfortable. | |
Mary bent over and ran her fingers along its top. | |
"It feels all right," she said, "Just like porcelain or--" | |
The machine clicked and a flagon lay upon the grass. | |
"For you," said Peter. | |
"For me?" | |
Peter picked up the tiny bottle and handed it to her. It was a | |
triumph of glassblower's skill and it shone with sparkling prismatic | |
color in the summer sunlight. | |
"Perfume would be my guess," he said. | |
She worked the stopper loose. | |
"Lovely," she breathed and held it out to him to smell. | |
It was all of lovely. | |
She corked it up again. | |
"But, Mr. Chaye..." | |
"I don't know," said Peter, "I simply do not know." | |
"Not even a guess?" | |
He shook his head. | |
"You just found it here." | |
"I was out for a walk--" | |
"And it was waiting for you." | |
"Well, now..." Peter began to object, but now that he thought about | |
it, that seemed exactly right--he had not found the machine; it had | |
been waiting for him. | |
"It was, wasn't it?" | |
"Now that you mention it," said Peter, "yes, I guess it was waiting | |
for me." | |
Not for him specifically, perhaps, but for anyone who might come | |
along the path. It had been waiting to be found, waiting for a chance | |
to go into its act, to do whatever it was supposed to do. | |
For now it appeared, as plain as day, that someone had left it there. | |
He stood in the pasture with Mary Mallet, farmer's daughter, standing | |
by his side--with the familiar grasses and the undergrowth and trees, | |
with the shrill of locust screeching across the rising heat of day, | |
with the far-off tinkle of a cowbell--and felt the chill of the | |
thought within his brain, the cold and terrible thought backgrounded | |
by the black of space and the dim endlessness of time. And he felt, | |
as well, a reaching out of something, of a chilly alien thing, toward | |
the warmth of humanity and Earth. | |
"Let's go back," he said. | |
They returned across the pasture to the house and stood for a moment | |
at the gate. | |
"Isn't there something we should do?" asked Mary. "Someone we should | |
tell about it?" | |
He shook his. head. "I want to think about it first." | |
"And do something about it?" | |
"There may be nothing that anyone can or should do." | |
He watched her go walking down the road, then turned away and went | |
back to the house. | |
He got out the lawn mower and cut the grass. After the lawn was | |
mowed, he puttered in the flowerbed. The zinnias were coming along | |
fine, but something had gotten into the asters and they weren't doing | |
well. And the grass kept creeping in, he thought. No matter what he | |
did, the grass kept creeping into the bed to strangle out the plants. | |
After lunch, he thought, "Maybe I'll go fishing. Maybe going fishing | |
will do me--" | |
He caught the thought before he finished it. | |
He squatted by the flowerbed, dabbing at the ground with the point of | |
his gardening trowel, and thought about the machine out in the pasture. | |
I want to think about it, he'd told Mary, but what was there to think | |
about? | |
Something that someone had left in his pasture--a machine that | |
clicked and laid a gift like an egg when you patted it. | |
What did that mean? | |
Why was it here? | |
Why did it click and hand out a gift when you patted it? | |
Response? The way a dog would wag its tail? | |
Gratitude? For being noticed by a human? | |
Negotiation? | |
Friendly gesture? | |
Booby trap? | |
And how had it known he would have sold his soul for a piece of jade | |
one-half as fine as the piece it had given him? | |
How had it known a girl would like perfume? | |
He heard the running footsteps behind him and swung around and there | |
was Mary, running across the lawn. | |
He reached him and went down on her knees beside him and her hands | |
clutched his arm. "Johnny found it, too," she panted. "I ran all the | |
way, Johnny and that Smith boy found it. They cut across the pasture | |
coming home from fishing..." | |
"Maybe we should have reported it," said Peter. | |
"It gave them something, too. A rod and reel to Johnny and a baseball | |
bat and mitt to little Augie Smith," | |
"Oh, good Lord!" | |
"And now they're telling everyone." | |
"It doesn't matter," Peter said. "At least, I don't suppose it matters." | |
"What is that thing out there? You said you didn't know. But you have | |
some idea. Peter, you must have some idea." | |
"I think it's alien," Peter reluctantly and embarrassedly told her, | |
"It has a funny look about it, like nothing I've ever seen or read | |
about, and Earth machines don't give away things when you lay a hand | |
on them. You have to feed them coins first. This isn't--isn't from | |
Earth." | |
"From Mars, you mean?" | |
"Not from Mars," said Peter. "Not from this solar system. We have no | |
reason to think another race of high intelligence exists in this | |
solar system and whoever dreamed up that machine had plenty of | |
intelligence." | |
"But... not from this solar system..." | |
"From some other star." | |
"The stars are so far away!" she protested. | |
So far away, thought Peter. So far out of the reach of the human | |
race. Within the reach of dreams, but not the reach of hands. So far | |
away and so callous and uncaring. And the machine-- | |
"Like a slot machine," he said, "except it always pays in jackpots | |
and you don't even need a coin. That is crazy, Mary. That's one | |
reason it isn't of this Earth. No Earth machine, no Earth inventor, | |
would do that." | |
"The neighbors will be coming," Mary said. | |
"I know they will. They'll be coming for their handouts." | |
"But it isn't very big. It could not carry enough inside it for the | |
entire neighborhood. It does not have much more than room enough for | |
the gifts it's already handed out." | |
"Mary, did Johnny want a rod and reel?" | |
"He'd talked of practically nothing else." | |
"And you like perfume?" | |
"I'd never had any good perfume. Just cheap stuff." She laughed a | |
little nervously. "And you? Do you like jade?" | |
"I'm what you might call a minor expert on it. It's a passion with | |
me." | |
"Then that machine..." | |
"Gives each one the thing he wants," Peter finished for her. | |
"It's frightening," said Mary. | |
And it seemed strange that anything at all could be frightening on | |
such a day as this--a burnished summer day, with white clouds rimming | |
the western horizon and the sky the color of pale blue silk, a day | |
that had no moods, but was as commonplace as the cornfield earth. | |
After Mary had left, Peter went in the house and made his lunch. He | |
sat by the window, eating it, and watched the neighbors come. They | |
came by twos and threes, tramping across the pasture from all | |
directions, coming to his pasture from their own farms, leaving the | |
haying rigs and the cultivators, abandoning their work in the middle | |
of the day to see the strange machine. They stood around and talked, | |
tramping down the thicket where he had found the machine, and at | |
times their high, shrill voices drifted across to him, but he could | |
not make out what they said, for the words were flattened and | |
distorted by the distance. | |
From the stars, he'd said. From some place among the stars. | |
And if that be fantasy, he said, I have a right to it. | |
First contact, he thought. | |
And clever! | |
Let an alien being arrive on Earth and the women would run screaming | |
for their homes and the men would grab their rifles and there'd be | |
hell to pay. | |
But a machine--that was a different matter. What if it was a little | |
different? What if it acted a little strangely? After all, it was | |
only a machine. It was something that could be understood. | |
And if it handed out free gifts, that was all the better. | |
After lunch, he went out and sat on the steps and some of the | |
neighbors came and showed him what the machine had given them. They | |
sat around and talked, all of them excited and mystified, but not a | |
single one of them was scared. | |
Among the gifts were wristwatches and floor lamps, typewriters and | |
fruit juicers, sets of dishes, chests of silver, bolts of drapery | |
materials, shoes, shotguns, carving sets, book ends, neckties, and | |
many other items. | |
One youngster had a dozen skunk traps and another had a bicycle. | |
A modern Pandora's box, thought Peter, made by an alien intelligence | |
and set down upon the Earth. | |
Apparently the word was spreading, for now the people came in cars. | |
Some of them parked by the road and walked down to the pasture and | |
others came into the barnyard and parked there, not bothering to ask | |
for permission. | |
After a time, they would come back loaded with their loot and drive | |
away. Out in the pasture was a milling throng of people. Peter, | |
watching it, was reminded of a county fair or a village carnival. | |
BY chore-time, the last of them had gone, even the neighbors who had | |
come to say a few words with him and to show him what they'd gotten, | |
so he left the house and walked up the pasture slope. The machine | |
still was there and it was starting to build something. It had laid | |
out around it a sort of platform of a stone that looked like marble, | |
as if it were laying a foundation for a building. The foundation was | |
about ten feet by twelve and was set level against the pasture's | |
slope, with footings of the same sort of stone going down into the | |
ground. | |
He sat down on a stump a little distance away and looked out over the | |
peace of the countryside. It seemed more beautiful, more quiet and | |
peaceful than it had ever seemed before, and he sat there | |
contentedly, letting the evening soak into his soul. | |
The sun had set not more than half an hour ago. The western sky was a | |
delicate lemon fading into green, with here and there the pink of | |
wandering cloud, while beneath the horizon the land lay in the haze | |
of a blue twilight, deepening at the edges. The liquid evensong of | |
birds ran along the hedges and the thickets and the whisper of | |
swallows' wings came down from overhead. | |
This is Earth, he thought, the peaceful, human Earth, a landscape | |
shaped by an agricultural people. This is the Earth of plum blossom | |
and of proud red barns and of corn rows as straight as rifle barrels. | |
For millions of years, the Earth had lain thus, without interference; | |
a land of soil and life, a local corner of the Galaxy engaged in its | |
own small strivings. | |
And now? | |
Now, finally, there was interference. | |
Now, finally, someone or something had come into this local corner of | |
the Galaxy and Earth was alone no longer. | |
To himself, he knew, it did not matter. Physically, there was no | |
longer anything that possibly could matter to him. All that was left | |
was the morning brightness and the evening peace and from each of | |
these, from every hour of each day that was left to him, it was his | |
purpose to extract the last bit of joy in being alive. | |
But to the others it would matter--to Mary Mallet and her brother | |
Johnny, to the little Smith boy who had gotten the baseball bat and | |
mitt, to all the people who had visited this pasture, and to all the | |
millions who had not visited or even heard of it. | |
Here, in this lonely place in the midst of the great cornlands, had | |
come, undramatically, a greater drama than the Earth had yet known. | |
Here was the pivot point. | |
He said to the machine, "What do you intend with us?" | |
There was no answer. He had not expected one. He sat and watched the | |
shadows deepen and the lights spring up in the farm houses that were | |
sprinkled on the land. Dogs barked from far away and others answered | |
them and the cowbells rang across the hills like tiny vesper notes. | |
At last, when he could see no longer, he walked slowly back to the | |
house. | |
In the kitchen, he found a lamp and lit it. He saw by the kitchen | |
clock that it was almost nine o'clock--time for the evening news. | |
He went into the living room and turned on the radio. Sitting in the | |
dark, he listened to it. | |
There was good news. | |
There had been no polio deaths in the state that day and only one new | |
case had been reported. | |
"It is too soon to hope, of course," the newscaster said, "but it | |
definitely is the first break in the epidemic. Up to the time of | |
broadcast, there have been no new cases for more than twenty hours. | |
The state health director said..." | |
He went on to read what the health director said, which wasn't much | |
of anything, just one of those public statements which pretty | |
generally add up to nothing tangible. | |
It was the first day in almost three weeks, the newscaster had said, | |
during which no polio deaths had been reported. But despite the | |
development, he said, there still was need of nurses. If you are a | |
nurse, he added, won't you please call this number? You are badly | |
needed. | |
He went on to warm over a grand jury report, without adding anything | |
really new. He gave the weather broadcast. He said the Emmett murder | |
trial had been postponed another month. | |
Then he said: "Someone has just handed me a bulletin. Now let me | |
see..." | |
You could hear the paper rustling as he held it to read it through, | |
could hear him gasp a little. | |
"It says here," he said, "that Sheriff Joe Burns has just now been | |
notified that a Flying Saucer has landed on the Peter Chaye farm out | |
near Mallet Corners. No one seems to know too much about it. One | |
report is that it was found this morning, but no one thought to | |
notify the sheriff. Let me repeat--this is just a report. We don't | |
know any more than what we've told you. We don't know if it is true | |
or not. The sheriff is on his way there now. Well let you know as | |
soon as we learn anything. Keep tuned to this..." | |
Peter got up and turned off the radio. Then he went into the kitchen | |
to bring in the lamp. He set the lamp on a table and sat down again | |
to wait for Sheriff Burns. | |
He didn't have long to wait. | |
"Folks tell me," said the Sheriff, "this here Flying Saucer landed on | |
your farm." | |
"I don't know if it's a Flying Saucer, Sheriff." | |
"Well, what is it, then?" | |
"I wouldn't know," said Peter. | |
"Folks tell me it was giving away things." | |
"It was doing that, all right." | |
"If this is some cockeyed advertising stunt," the sheriff said, "I'll | |
have someone's neck for it." | |
"I'm sure it's not an advertising stunt." | |
"Why didn't you notify me right off? What you mean by holding out on | |
a thing like this?" | |
"I didn't think of notifying you," Peter told him. "I wasn't trying | |
to hold out on anything." | |
"You new around here, ain't you?" asked the sheriff. "I don't | |
recollect seeing you before. Thought I knew everyone." | |
"I've been here three months." | |
"Folks tell me you ain't farming the place. Tell me you ain't got no | |
family. Live here all by yourself, just doing nothing." | |
"That's correct," said Peter. | |
The sheriff waited for the explanation, but Peter offered none. The | |
sheriff looked at him suspiciously in the smoky lamplight. | |
"Can you show us this here Flying Saucer?" | |
By now Peter was a little weary of the sheriff, so he said, "I can | |
tell you how to find it. You go down past the barn and cross the | |
brook..." | |
"Why don't you come with us, Chaye?" | |
"Look, Sheriff, I was telling you how to find it. Do you want me to | |
continue?" | |
"Why, sure," the sheriff said. "Of course I do. But why can't you..." | |
"I've seen it twice," said Peter. "I've been overrun by people all | |
the afternoon." | |
"All right, all right," the sheriff said. "Tell me how to find it." | |
He told him and the sheriff left, followed by his two deputies. | |
The telephone rang. | |
Peter answered it. It was the radio station he'd been listening to. | |
"Say," asked the radio reporter, "you got a Saucer out there?" | |
"I don't think so," Peter said. "I do have something out here, | |
though. The sheriff is going out to take a look at it." | |
"We want to send out our mobile TV unit, but we wanted to be sure | |
there was something there. It be all right with you if we send it | |
out?" | |
"No objections. Send it along." | |
"You sure you got something there?" | |
"I told you that I had." | |
"Well, then, suppose you tell me..." | |
Fifteen minutes later, he hung up. | |
The phone rang again. | |
It was the Associated Press. The man at the other end of the wire was | |
wary and skeptical. | |
"What's this I hear about a Saucer out there?" | |
Ten minutes later, Peter hung up. | |
The phone rang almost immediately. | |
"McClelland of the Tribune," said a bored voice. "I heard a screwball | |
story..." | |
Five minutes. | |
The phone rang again. | |
It was the United Press. | |
"Hear you got a Saucer. Any little men in it?" | |
Fifteen minutes. | |
The phone rang. | |
It was an irate citizen. | |
"I just heard on the radio you got a Flying Saucer. What kind of gag | |
you trying to pull? You know there ain't any Flying Saucers..." | |
"Just a moment, sir," said Peter. | |
He let the receiver hang by its cord and went out to the kitchen. He | |
found a pair of clips and came back. He could hear the irate citizen | |
still chewing him out, the voice coming ghostlike out of the dangling | |
receiver. | |
He went outside and found the wire and clipped it. When he came back | |
in again, the receiver was silent. He hung it carefully on the hook. | |
Then he locked the doors and went to bed. | |
To bed, but not immediately to sleep. He lay beneath the covers, | |
staring up into the darkness and trying to quiet the turmoil of | |
speculation that surged within his brain*. | |
He had gone walking in the morning and found a machine. He had put | |
his hand upon it and it had given him a gift. Later on, it had given | |
other gifts. | |
"A machine came, bearing gifts," he said into the darkness. | |
A clever, calculated, well-worked-out first contact. | |
Contact them with something they will know and recognize and need not | |
be afraid of, something to which they can feel superior. | |
Make it friendly--and what is more friendly than handing out a gift? | |
What is it? | |
Missionary? | |
Trader? | |
Diplomat? | |
Or just a mere machine and nothing more? | |
Spy? Adventurer? Investigator? Surveyor? | |
Doctor? Lawyer? Indian chief? And why, of all places, had it landed | |
here, in this forsaken farmland, in this pasture on his farm? | |
And its purpose? | |
What had been the purpose, the almost inevitable motive, of those | |
fictional alien beings who, in tales of fantasy, had landed on Earth? | |
To take over, of course. If not by force, then by infiltration or by | |
friendly persuasion and compulsion; to take over not only Earth, but | |
the human race as well. | |
The man from the radio station had been excited, the Associated Press | |
man had been indignant that anyone should so insult his intelligence, | |
the Tribune man had been bored and the United Press man flippant. But | |
the citizen had been angry. He was being taken in by another Flying | |
Saucer story and it was just too much. | |
The citizen was angry because he didn't want his little world | |
disturbed. He wanted no interference. He had trouble enough of his | |
own without things being messed up by a Saucer's landing. He had | |
problems of his own--earning a living, getting along with his | |
neighbors, planning his work, worrying about the polio epidemic. | |
Although the newscaster had said the polio situation seemed a little | |
brighter--no new cases and no deaths. And that was a fine thing, for | |
polio was pain and death and a terror on the land. | |
Pain, he thought. | |
I've had no pain today. | |
For the first time in many days, there has been no pain. | |
He lay stiff and still beneath the covers, examining himself for | |
pain. He knew just where it lurked, the exact spot in his anatomy | |
where it lurked hidden out of sight. He lay and waited for it, | |
fearful, now that he had thought of it, that he would find it there. | |
But it was not there. | |
He lay and waited for it, afraid that the very thought of it would | |
conjure it up from its hiding place. It did not come. He dared it to | |
come, he invited it to show itself, he hurled mental jibes at it to | |
lure it out. It refused to be lured. | |
He relaxed and knew that for the moment he was safe. But safe only | |
temporarily, for the pain still was there. It bided its time, waited | |
for its moment, would come when the time was right. | |
With careless abandon, trying to wipe out the future and its threat, | |
he luxuriated in life without the pain. He listened to the house--the | |
slightly settling joists that made the floor boards creak, the thrum | |
of the light summer wind against the weathered siding, the scraping | |
of the elm branch against the kitchen roof. | |
Another sound. A knocking at the door, "Chaye! Chaye, where are you?" | |
"Coming," he called. | |
He found slippers and went to the door. It was the sheriff and his | |
men. | |
"Light the lamp," the sheriff said. | |
"You got a match?" Peter asked. | |
"Yeah, here are some." | |
Groping in the dark, Peter found the sheriff's hand and the book of | |
matches. | |
He located the table, slid his hand across the top and felt the lamp. | |
He lit it and looked at the sheriff from across the table. | |
"Chaye," the sheriff said, "that thing is building something," | |
"I know it is." | |
"What's the gag?" | |
"There's no gag." | |
"It gave me this," the sheriff said. | |
He threw the object on the table. | |
"A gun," said Peter. | |
"You ever see one like it?" | |
It was a gun, all right, about the size of a .45. But it had no | |
trigger and the muzzle flared and the whole thing was made of some | |
white, translucent substance. | |
Peter picked it up and found it weighed no more than half a pound or | |
so. | |
"No," said Peter. "No, I've never seen one like it." He put it back | |
on the table, gingerly. "Does it work?" | |
"It does," the sheriff said. "I tried it on your barn." | |
"There ain't no barn no more," said one of the deputies. | |
"No report, no flash, no nothing," the sheriff added. | |
"Just no barn," repeated the deputy, obsessed with the idea. | |
A car drove into the yard. | |
"Go out and see who's there," said the sheriff. | |
One of the deputies went out. | |
"I don't get it," complained the sheriff. "They said Flying Saucer, | |
but I don't think it's any Saucer. A box is all it is." | |
"It's a machine," said Peter. | |
Feet stamped across the porch and men came through the door. | |
"Newspapermen," said the deputy who had gone out to see. | |
"I ain't got no statement, boys," the sheriff said. | |
One of them said to Peter: | |
"You Chaye?" | |
Peter nodded. | |
"I'm Hoskins from the Tribune. This is Johnson from the AP. That guy | |
over there with the sappy look is a photographer, name of Langly. | |
Disregard him." | |
He pounded Peter on the back. "How does it feel to be sitting in the | |
middle of the century's biggest news break? Great stuff, hey, boy?" | |
Langly said: "Hold it." | |
A flash bulb popped. | |
"I got to use the phone," said Johnson. "Where is it?" | |
"Over there," said Peter- "It's not working." | |
"How come at a time like this?" | |
"I cut the wire." | |
"Cut the wire! You crazy, Chaye?" | |
"There were too many people calling." | |
"Now," said -Hoskins, "wasn't that a hell of a thing to do?" | |
"I'll fix her up," Langly offered. "Anyone got a pair of pliers?" | |
The sheriff said, "You boys hold on a minute." | |
"Hurry up and get into a pair of pants," Hoskins said to Peter. | |
"We'll want your picture on the scene. Standing with your foot on it, | |
like the guy that's just killed an elephant." | |
"You listen here," the sheriff said. | |
"What is it, Sheriff?" | |
"This here's important. Get it straight. You guys can't go messing | |
around with it." | |
"Sure it's important," said Hoskins. "That is why we're here. | |
Millions of people standing around with their tongues hanging out for | |
news." | |
"Here are some pliers," someone remarked. | |
"Leave me at that phone," said Langly. | |
"What are we horsing around for?" asked Hoskins. "Let's go out and | |
see it." | |
"I gotta make a call," said Johnson. | |
"Look here, boys," the sheriff insisted in confusion. "Wait--" | |
"What's it like. Sheriff? Figure it's a Saucer? How big is it? Does | |
it make a clicking noise or something? Hey, Langly, take the | |
sheriff's picture." | |
"Just a minute," Langly shouted from outside. "I'm fixing up this wire." | |
More feet came across the porch. A head was thrust into the door. | |
"TV truck," the head said. "This the place? How do we get out to the | |
thing?" | |
The phone rang. | |
Johnson answered it. | |
"It's for you, Sheriff." | |
The sheriff lumbered across the room. They waited, listening. | |
"Sure, this is Sheriff Burns... Yeah, it's out there, all right... | |
Sure, I know. I've seen it... No, of course, I don't know what it | |
is... Yes, I understand... Yes, sir... Yes, sir. I'll see to it, sir." | |
He hung up the receiver and turned around to face them. | |
"That was military intelligence," he said. "No one is going out | |
there. No one's moving from this house. This place is restricted as | |
of this minute." | |
He looked from one to another of them ferociously. | |
"Them's orders," he told them. | |
"Oh, hell," said Hoskins. | |
"I came all the way out here," bawled the TV man. "I'm not going to | |
come out here and not..." | |
"It isn't me that's doing the ordering," said the sheriff, "It's | |
Uncle Sam. You boys take things easy." | |
Peter went out into the kitchen and poked up the fire and set on the | |
kettle. | |
"The coffee's there," he said to Langly. "I'll put on some clothes." | |
Slowly, the night wore on. Hoskins and Johnson phoned in the | |
information they had jotted down on folded copy paper, their pencils | |
stabbing cryptic signs as they talked to Peter and the sheriff. After | |
some argument with the sheriff about letting him go, Langly left with | |
his pictures. The sheriff paced up and down the room. | |
The radio blared. The phone banged constantly. | |
They drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, littering the floor with | |
ground-out stubs. More newsmen pulled in, were duly warned by the | |
sheriff, and settled down to wait. | |
Someone brought out a bottle and passed it around. Someone else tried | |
to start a poker game, but nobody was interested. | |
Peter went out to get an armload of wood. The night was quiet, with | |
stars. | |
He glanced toward the pasture, but there was nothing there to see. | |
He tried to make out the empty place where the barn had disappeared. | |
It was too dark to tell whether the barn was there or not. | |
Death watch or the last dark hour before the dawn--the brightest, | |
most wonderful dawn that Man had ever seen in all his years of | |
striving? | |
The machine was building something out there, building something in | |
the night. | |
And what was it building? | |
Shrine? | |
Trading post? | |
Mission house? | |
Embassy? | |
Fort? | |
There was no way of knowing, no way that one could tell. | |
Whatever it was building, it was the first known outpost ever built | |
by an alien race on the planet Earth. | |
He went back into the house with the load of wood. | |
"They're sending troops," the sheriff told him. | |
"Tramp, tramp, tramp," said Hoskins, deadpan, cigarette hanging | |
negligently to his underlip. | |
"The radio just said so," the sheriff said. "They called out the | |
guard." | |
Hoskins and Johnson did some more tramp-tramping. | |
"You guys better not horse around with them soldier boys," the | |
sheriff warned. "They'll shove a bayonet..." | |
Hoskins made a noise like a bugle blowing the charge, Johnson grabbed | |
two spoons and beat out galloping hoofs. | |
"The calvary!" shouted Hoskins, "By God, boys, we're saved!" | |
Someone said wearily: "Can't you guys be your age?" | |
They sat around, as the night wore on, drinking coffee and smoking. | |
They didn't do much talking. | |
The radio station finally signed off. Someone fooled around, trying | |
to get another station, but the batteries were too weak to pull in | |
anything. He shut the radio off. It had been some time now since the | |
phone had rung. | |
Dawn was still an hour away when the guardsmen arrived, not marching, | |
nor riding horses, but in five canvas-covered trucks. | |
The captain came in for just a moment to find out where this goddam | |
obscenity Saucer was. He was the fidgety type. He wouldn't even stay | |
for a cup of coffee. He went out yelling orders at the drivers. | |
Inside the house, the others waited and heard the five trucks growl | |
away. | |
Dawn came and a building stood in the pasture, and it was a bit | |
confusing, for you could see that it was being built in a way that | |
was highly unorthodox. | |
Whoever or whatever was building it had started on the inside and was | |
building outward, so that you saw the core of the building, as if it | |
were a building that was being torn down and some one already had | |
ripped off the entire exterior. | |
It covered half an acre and was five stories high. It gleamed pink in | |
the first light of the morning, a beautiful misty pink that made you | |
choke up a little, remembering the color of the dress the little girl | |
next door had worn for her seventh birthday party. | |
The guardsmen were ringed around it, the morning light spattering off | |
their bayonets as they stood the guard. | |
Peter made breakfast--huge stacks of flapjacks, all the bacon he had | |
left, every egg he could find, a gallon or two of oatmeal, more | |
coffee. | |
"We'll send out and get some grub," said Hoskins. "We'll make this | |
right with you." | |
After breakfast, the sheriff and the deputies drove back to the | |
county seat. Hoskins took up a collection and went to town to buy | |
groceries. The other newsmen stayed on. The TV truck got squared off | |
for some wide-angle distance shots. | |
The telephone started jangling again. The newsmen took turns | |
answering it. | |
Peter walked down the road to the Mallet farm to get eggs and milk. | |
Mary ran out to the gate to meet him, "The neighbors are getting | |
scared," she said, | |
"They weren't scared yesterday," said Peter. "They walked right up | |
and got their gifts," | |
"But this is different, Peter. This is getting out of hand. The | |
building..." | |
And that was it, of course. The building. | |
No one had been frightened of an innocent-appearing machine because | |
it was small and friendly. It shone so prettily and it clicked so | |
nicely and it handed out gifts. It was something that could be | |
superficially recognized and it had a purpose that was understandable | |
if one didn't look too far. | |
But the building was big and might get bigger still and it was being | |
erected inside out. And who in all the world had ever seen a | |
structure built as fast as that one--five stories in one single night? | |
"How do they do it, Peter?" Mary asked in a hushed little voice. | |
"I don't know," he said. "Some principle that is entirely alien to | |
us, some process that men have never even thought of, a way of doing | |
things, perhaps, that starts on an entirely different premise than | |
the human way." | |
"But it's just the kind of building that men themselves would build," | |
she objected, "Not that kind of stone, perhaps--maybe there isn't any | |
stone like that in the entire world--but in every other way there's | |
nothing strange about it. It looks like a big high school or a | |
department store." | |
"My jade was jade," said Peter, "and your perfume was perfume and the | |
rod and reel that Johnny got was a regular rod and reel." | |
"That means they know about us. They know all there is to know. | |
Peter, they've been watching us!" | |
"I have no doubt of it." | |
He saw the terror in her eyes and reached out a hand to draw her | |
close and she came into his arms and he held her tightly and thought, | |
even as he did so, how strange that he should be the one to extend | |
comfort and assurance. | |
"I'm foolish, Peter." | |
"You're wonderful," he assured her. | |
"I'm not really scared." | |
"Of course you're not." He wanted to say, "I love you," but he knew | |
that those were words he could never say. Although the pain, he | |
thought--the pain had not come this morning. | |
"I'll get the milk and eggs," said Mary. | |
"Give me all you can spare. I have quite a crowd to feed." | |
Walking back, he thought about the neighbors being frightened now and | |
wondered how long it would be before the world got frightened, | |
too--how long before artillery would be wheeling into line, how long | |
before an atom bomb would fall. | |
He stopped on the rise of the hill above the house and for the first | |
time noticed that the barn was gone. It had been sheared off as | |
cleanly as if cut with a knife, with the stump of the foundation | |
sliced away at an angle. | |
He wondered if the sheriff still had the gun and supposed he had. | |
And he wondered what the sheriff would do with it and why it had been | |
given him. For, of all the gifts that he had seen, it was the only | |
one that was not familiar to Earth. | |
In the pasture that had been empty yesterday, that had been only | |
trees and grass and old, grassed-over ditches, bordered by the wild | |
plum thickets and the hazel brush and blackberry vine, rose the | |
building, It seemed to him that it was bigger than when he had seen | |
it less than an hour before. | |
Back at the house, the newspapermen were sitting in the yard, looking | |
at the building. | |
One of them said to him, "The brass arrived. They're waiting in there | |
for you." | |
"Intelligence?" asked Peter. | |
The newsman nodded. "A chicken colonel and a major." | |
They were waiting in the living room. The colonel was a young man | |
with gray hair. The major wore a mustache, very military. | |
The colonel introduced himself. "I'm Colonel Whitman. This is Major | |
Rockwell." | |
Peter put down his eggs and milk and nodded acknowledgment. | |
"You found this machine," said the colonel, | |
"That is right." | |
"Tell us about it," said the colonel, so Peter told them about it. | |
"This jade," the colonel said. "Could we have a look at it?" | |
Peter went to the kitchen and got the jade. They passed it from one | |
to the other, examining it closely, turning it over and over in their | |
hands, a bit suspicious of it, but admiring it, although Peter could | |
see they knew nothing about jade. | |
Almost as if he might have known what was in Peter's mind, the | |
colonel lifted his eyes from the jade and looked at him. | |
"You know jade," the colonel said. | |
"Very well," said Peter. "You've worked with it before?" | |
"In a museum." | |
"Tell me about yourself." | |
Peter hesitated--then told about himself. | |
"But why are you here?" the colonel asked. | |
"Have you ever been in a hospital, Colonel? Have you ever thought | |
what it would be like to die there?" | |
The colonel nodded. "I can see your point. But here you'll have no--" | |
"I won't wait that long." | |
"Yes, yes," the colonel said. "I see." | |
"Colonel," said, the major. "Look at this, sir, if you will. This | |
symbolism is the same..." | |
The colonel snatched it from his hands and looked. | |
"The same as on the letterhead!" he shouted. | |
The colonel lifted his head and stared at Peter, as if it had been | |
the first time he had seen him, as if he were surprised at seeing him. | |
There was, suddenly, a gun in the major's hand, pointing at Peter, | |
its muzzle a cold and steady eye. | |
Peter tried to throw himself aside. | |
He was too late. | |
The major shot him down. | |
Peter fell for a million years through a wool-gray nothingness that | |
screamed and he knew it must be a dream, an endless atavistic dream | |
of falling, brought down through all the years from incredibly remote | |
forebears who had dwelt in trees and had lived in fear of falling. | |
He tried to pinch himself to awaken from the dream, but he couldn't | |
do it, since he had no hands to pinch with, and, after a time, it | |
became apparent that he had no body to pinch. He was a disembodied | |
consciousness hurtling through a gulf which seemed to have no | |
boundaries. | |
He fell for a million years through the void that seemed to scream at | |
him. At first the screaming soaked into him and filled his soul, | |
since he had no body, with a terrible agony that went on and on, | |
never quite reaching the breaking point that would send him into the | |
release of insanity. But he got used to it after a time and as soon | |
as he did, the screaming stopped and he plunged down through space in | |
a silence that was more dreadful than the screaming. | |
He fell forever and forever and then it seemed that forever ended, | |
for he was at rest and no longer falling. | |
He saw a face. It was a face from incredibly long ago, a face that he | |
once had seen and had long forgotten, and he searched back along his | |
memory to try to identify it. | |
He couldn't see it too clearly, for it seemed to keep bobbing around | |
so he couldn't pin it down. He tried and tried and couldn't and he | |
closed his eyes to shut the face away. | |
"Chaye," a voice said. "Peter Chaye." | |
"Go away," said Peter. | |
The voice went away. | |
He opened his eyes again and the face was there, clearer now and no | |
longer bobbing. | |
It was the colonel's face. | |
He shut his eyes again, remembering the steady eye of the gun the | |
major had held. He'd jumped aside, or tried to, and he had been too | |
slow. Something had happened and he'd fallen for a million years and | |
here he was, with the colonel looking at him. | |
He'd been shot. That was the answer, of course. The major had shot | |
him and he was in a hospital. But where had he been hit? Arm? Both | |
arms seemed to be all right. Leg? Both legs were all right, too. No | |
pain. No bandages. No casts. | |
The colonel said: "He came to for just a minute, Doc, and now he's | |
off again." | |
"He'll be all right," said Doc. "Just give him time. You gave him too | |
big a charge, that's all. It'll take a little time." | |
"We must talk to him." | |
"You'll have to wait." | |
There was silence for a moment. | |
Then: "You're absolutely sure he's human?" | |
"We've gone over every inch of him," said Doc. "If he isn't human, | |
he's too good an imitation for us ever to find out." | |
"He told me he had cancer," the colonel said, "Claimed he was dying | |
of cancer. Don't you see, if he wasn't human, if there was something | |
wrong, he could always try to make it look..." | |
"He hasn't any cancer. Not a sign of it. No sign he ever had it. No | |
sign he ever will." | |
Even with his eyes shut, Peter felt that he was agape with disbelief | |
and amazement. He forced his eyes to stay closed, afraid that this | |
was a trick. | |
"That other doctor," the colonel said, "told Peter Chaye four months | |
ago he had six more months to live. He told him..." | |
Doc said, "Colonel, I won't even try to explain it. All I can tell | |
you is that the man lying on that bed hasn't got cancer. He's as | |
healthy a man as you would wish to find." | |
"It isn't Peter Chaye, then," the colonel stated in a dogged voice. | |
"It's something that took over Peter Chaye or duplicated Peter Chaye | |
or..." | |
Doc said, "Now, now, Colonel. Let's stick to what we know." | |
"You're sure he's a man, Doc?" | |
"I'm sure he's a human being, if that is what you mean." | |
"No little differences? Just one seemingly unimportant deviation from | |
the human norm?" | |
"None," Doc said, "and even if there were, it wouldn't prove what you | |
are after. There could be minor mutational difference in anyone. The | |
human body doesn't always run according to a blueprint." | |
"There were differences in all that stuff the machine gave away. | |
Little differences that came to light only on close examination--but | |
differences that spelled out a margin between human and alien | |
manufacture." | |
"All right, then, so there were differences. So those things were | |
made by aliens. I still tell you this man is a human being." | |
"It all ties in so neatly," the colonel declared. "Chaye goes out and | |
buys this place--this old, abandoned farm. He's eccentric as hell by | |
the standards of that neighborhood. By the very fact of his | |
eccentricity, he invites attention, which might be undesirable, but | |
at the same time his eccentricity might be used to cover up and | |
smooth over anything he did out of the ordinary. It would be just | |
somebody like him who'd supposedly find a strange machine. It would | |
be..." | |
"You're building up a case," said Doc, "without anything to go on. | |
You asked for one little difference in him to base your cockeyed | |
theory on--no offense, but that's how I, as a doctor, see it. Well, | |
now let's have one little fact--fact, mind you, not guess--to support | |
this idea of yours." | |
"What was in that barn?" demanded the colonel. "That's what I want to | |
know. Did Chaye build that machine in there? Was that why it was | |
destroyed?" | |
"The sheriff destroyed the barn," the doctor said. "Chaye had nothing | |
to do with it." | |
"But who gave the gun to the sheriff? Chaye's machine, that's who. | |
And it would be an easy matter of suggestion, mind control, | |
hypnotism, whatever you want to call it..." | |
"Let's get back to facts. You used an anesthetic gun on this man. | |
You've held him prisoner. By your orders, he has been subjected to | |
intensive examination, a clear invasion of his privacy. I hope to God | |
he never brings you into court. He could throw the book at you." | |
"I know," the colonel admitted reluctantly. "But we have to bust this | |
thing. We must find out what it is. We have got to get that bomb back!" | |
"The bomb's what worries you." | |
"Hanging up there," the colonel said, sounding as if he'd shuddered. | |
"Just hanging up there!" | |
"I have to get along," replied the doctor, "Take it easy, Colonel." | |
The doctor's footsteps went out the door and down the corridor, | |
fading away. The colonel paced up and down a while and then sat down | |
heavily in a chair. | |
Peter lay in bed, and one thought crashed through his brain, one | |
thought again and again: | |
I'm going to live! | |
But he hadn't been. | |
He had been ready for the day when the pain finally became too great | |
to bear. | |
He had picked his ground to spend his final days, to make his final | |
stand. | |
And now he had been reprieved. Now, somehow, he had been given back | |
his life. | |
He lay in the bed, fighting against excitement, against a growing | |
tenseness, trying to maintain the pretense that he still was under | |
the influence of whatever he'd been shot with. | |
An anesthetic gun, the doctor had said. Something new, something he | |
had never heard of. And yet somewhere there was a hint of it. | |
Something, he remembered, about dentistry--a new technique that | |
dentists used to desensitize the gums, a fine stream of anesthetic | |
sprayed against the gums. Something like that, only hundreds or | |
thousands of times stronger? | |
Shot and brought here and examined because of some wild fantasy | |
lurking in the mind of a G-2 colonel. | |
Fantasy? He wondered. Unwitting, unsuspecting, could he have played a | |
part? It was ridiculous, of course. For he remembered nothing he had | |
done or said or even thought which gave him a clue to any part he | |
might have played in the machined coming to the Earth. | |
Could cancer be something other than disease? Some uninvited guest, | |
perhaps, that came and lived within a human body? A clever alien | |
guest who came from far away, across the unguessed light-years? | |
And that, he knew, was fantasy to match the colonel's fantasy, a | |
malignant nightmare of distrust that dwelt within the human mind, an | |
instinctive defense mechanism that conditioned the race to expect the | |
worst and to arm against it. | |
There was nothing feared so much as the unknown factor; nothing which | |
one must guard against so much as the unexplained. | |
We have to bust this thing, the colonel had said. We must find out | |
what it is. | |
And, that, of course, was the terror of it--that they had no way of | |
knowing what it was. | |
He stirred at last, very deliberately, and the colonel spoke. | |
"Peter Chaye," he said. | |
"Yes, what is it, Colonel?" | |
"I have to talk to you." | |
"All right, talk to me." | |
He sat up in the bed and saw that he was in a hospital room. It had | |
the stark, antiseptic quality, the tile floor, the colorless walls, | |
the utilitarian look--and the bed on which he lay was a hospital bed. | |
"How do you feel?" the colonel asked. | |
"Not so hot," confessed Peter. | |
"We were a little rough on you, but we couldn't take a chance. There | |
was the letter, you see, and the slot machines and the stamp machines | |
and all the other things and..." | |
"You said something about a letterhead." | |
"What do you know about that, Chaye?" | |
"I don't know a thing." | |
"It came to the President," said the colonel. "A month or so ago. And | |
a similar one went to every other administrative head on the entire | |
Earth." | |
"Saying?" | |
"That's the hell of it. It was written in no language known anywhere | |
on Earth. But there was one line--one line on all the letters--that | |
you could read. It said: 'By the time you have this deciphered, | |
you'll be ready to act logically.' And that was all anybody could | |
read--one line in the native language of every country that got a | |
copy of the letter. The rest was in gibberish, for all we could make | |
of it." | |
"You haven't deciphered it?" | |
He could see the colonel sweating, "Not even a single character, much | |
less a word." | |
Peter reached out a hand to the bedside table and lifted the carafe, | |
tipped it above the glass. There was nothing in it. | |
The colonel heaved himself out of his chair. I'll get you a drink of | |
water." | |
He picked up the glass and opened the bathroom door. | |
"I'll let it run a while and get it cold," he said. | |
But Peter scarcely heard him, for he was staring at the door. There | |
was a bolt on it and if-- | |
The water started running and the colonel raised his voice to be | |
heard above it. | |
"That's about the time we started finding the machines," he said. | |
"Can you imagine it? A cigarette-vending machine and you could buy | |
cigarettes from it, but it was more than that. It was something | |
watching you. Something that studied the people and the way they | |
lived. And the stamp machines and the slot machines and all the other | |
mechanical contrivances that we have set up. Not machines, but | |
watchers. Watching all the time. Watching and learning..." | |
Peter swung his legs out of bed and touched the floor. He approached | |
swiftly and silently on bare feet and slammed the door, then reached | |
up and slid the bolt. It snicked neatly into place. | |
"Hey!" the colonel shouted. | |
Clothes? | |
They might be in the closet. | |
Peter leaped at it and wrenched the door open and there they were, | |
hung upon the hangers. | |
He ripped off the hospital gown, snatched at his trousers and pulled | |
them on. | |
Shirt, now! In a drawer. | |
And shoes? There on the closet floor. Don't take time to tie them. | |
The colonel was pushing and hammering at the door, not yelling yet. | |
Later he would, but right now he was intent on saving all the face he | |
could. He wouldn't want to advertise immediately the fact that he'd | |
been tricked. | |
Peter felt through his pockets. His wallet was gone. So was | |
everything else--his knife, his watch, his keys. More than likely | |
they'd taken all of it and put it in the office safe when he'd been | |
brought in. | |
No time to worry about any of them. The thing now was to get away. | |
He went out the door and down the corridor, carefully not going too | |
fast. He passed a nurse, but she scarcely glanced at him. | |
He found a stairway door and opened it. Now he could hurry just a | |
little more. He went down the stairs three at a time, shoelaces | |
clattering. | |
The stairs, he told himself, were fairly safe. Almost no one would | |
use them when there were the elevators. He stopped and bent over for | |
a moment and tied the laces. | |
The floor numbers were painted above each of the doors, so he knew | |
where he was. At the ground floor, he entered the corridor again. So | |
far, there seemed to be no alarms, although any minute now the | |
colonel would start to raise a ruckus. | |
Would they try to stop him at the door? Would there be someone to | |
question him? Would-- | |
A basket of flowers stood beside a door. He glanced up and down the | |
corridor. There were several people, but they weren't looking at him. | |
He scooped up the flowers. | |
At the door, he said to the attendant who sat behind the desk: | |
"Mistake. Wrong flowers." | |
She smiled sourly, but made no move to stop him. | |
Outside, he put the flowers down on the steps and walked rapidly away. | |
An hour later, he knew that he was safe. He knew also that he was in | |
a city thirty miles away from where he wanted to go and that he had | |
no money and that he was hungry and his feet were sore from walking | |
on the hard and unyielding concrete of the sidewalks. | |
He found a park and sat down on a bench. A little distance away, a | |
group of old men were playing checkers at a table. A mother wheeled | |
her baby. A young man sat on a nearby bench, listening to a tiny | |
radio. | |
The radio said: "Apparently the building is completed. There has been | |
no sign of it growing for the last eighteen hours. At the moment, it | |
measures a thousand stories high and covers more than a hundred | |
acres. The bomb, which was dropped two days ago, still floats there | |
above it, held in suspension by some strange force. Artillery is | |
standing by, waiting for the word to fire, but the word has not come | |
through. Many think that since the bomb could not get through, shells | |
will have no better chance, if any at all." | |
"A military spokesman, in fact, has said that the big guns are mere | |
precautionary measures, which may be all right, but it certainly | |
doesn't explain why the bomb was dropped. There is a rising clamor, | |
not only in Congress, but throughout the world, to determine why an | |
attempt was made at bombing. There has as yet been no hostile move | |
directed from the building. The only damage so far reported has been | |
the engulfment by the building of the farm home of Peter Chaye, the | |
man who found the machine." | |
"All trace has been lost of Chaye since three days ago, when he | |
suffered an attack of some sort and was taken from his home. It is | |
believed that he may be in military custody. There is wide | |
speculation on what Chaye may or may not know. It is entirely likely | |
that he is the only man on Earth who can shed any light on what has | |
happened on his farm." | |
"Meanwhile, the military guard has been tightened around the scene | |
and a corridor of some eighteen miles in depth around it has been | |
evacuated. It is known that two delegations of scientists have been | |
escorted through the lines. While no official announcement has been | |
made, there is good reason to believe they learned little from their | |
visits." | |
"What the building is, who or what has engineered its construction, | |
if you can call the inside-out process by which it grew construction, | |
or what may be expected next are all fields of groundless | |
speculation. There is plenty of that, naturally, but no one has yet | |
come up with what might be called an explanation." | |
"The world's press wires are continuing to pile up reams of copy, but | |
even so there is little actual, concrete knowledge--few facts that | |
can be listed one, two, three right down the line." | |
"There is little other news of any sort and perhaps it's just as | |
well, since there is no room at the moment in the public interest for | |
anything else but this mysterious building. Strangely, however, there | |
is little other news. As so often happens when big news breaks, all | |
other events seem to wait for some other time to happen. The polio | |
epidemic is rapidly subsiding; there is no major crime news. In the | |
world's capitals, of course, all legislative action is at a complete | |
standstill, with the governments watching closely the developments at | |
the building." | |
"There is a rising feeling at many of these capitals that the | |
building is not of mere national concern, that decisions regarding it | |
must be made at an international level. The attempted bombing has | |
resulted in some argument that we, as the nation most concerned, | |
cannot be trusted to act in a calm, dispassionate way, and that an | |
objective world viewpoint is necessary for an intelligent handling of | |
the situation." | |
Peter got up from his bench and walked away. He'd been taken from his | |
home three days ago, the radio had said. No wonder he was starved. | |
Three days--and in that time the building had grown a thousand | |
stories high and now covered a hundred acres. | |
He went along, not hurrying too much now, his feet a heavy ache, his | |
belly pinched with hunger. | |
He had to get back to the building--somehow he had to get back there. | |
It was a sudden need, realized and admitted now, but the reason for | |
it, the source of it, was not yet apparent. It was as if there had | |
been something he had left behind and he had to go and find it. | |
Something I left behind, he thought. What could he have left behind? | |
Nothing but the pain and the knowledge that he walked with a dark | |
companion and the little capsule that he carried in his pocket for | |
the time when the pain grew too great. | |
He felt in his pocket and the capsule was no longer there. It had | |
disappeared along with his wallet and his pocket knife and watch. No | |
matter now, he thought. I no longer need the capsule. | |
He heard the hurrying footsteps behind him and there was an urgency | |
about them that made him swing around. | |
"Peter!" Mary cried out. "Peter, I thought I recognized you. I was | |
hurrying to catch you." | |
He stood and looked at her as if he did not quite believe it was she | |
whom he saw. | |
"Where have you been?" she asked. | |
"Hospital," Peter said. "I away from them. But you." | |
"We were evacuated, Peter. | |
They came and told us that we had to leave. Some of us are at a camp | |
down at the other end of the park. Pa is carrying on something awful | |
and I can't blame him--having to leave right in the middle of haying | |
and with the small grain almost ready to be cut." | |
She tilted back her head and looked into his face. | |
"You look all worn out," she said, "Is it worse again?" | |
"It?" he asked, then realized that the neighbors must have | |
known--that the reason for his coming to the farm must have been | |
general knowledge, for there were no such things as secrets in a | |
farming neighborhood. | |
"I'm sorry, Peter," Mary said. "Terribly sorry. I shouldn't have..." | |
"It's all 'right " said Peter. "Because it's gone now, Mary. I | |
haven't got it any more, I don't know how or why, but I've gotten rid | |
of it in some way." | |
"The hospital?" she suggested. | |
"The hospital had nothing to do with it. It had cleared up before I | |
went there. They just found out at the hospital, that is." | |
"Maybe the diagnosis was wrong." | |
He shook his head. "It wasn't wrong, Mary." | |
Still, how could he be sure? How could he, or the medical world, say | |
positively that it had been malignant cells and not something | |
else--some strange parasite to which he had played the unsuspecting | |
host? | |
"You said you ran away," she reminded him. | |
"They'll be looking for me, Mary. The colonel and the major. They | |
think I had something to do with the machine I found. They think I | |
might have made it. They took me to the hospital to find out if I was | |
human." | |
"Of all the silly things!" | |
"I've got to get back to the farm," he said. "I simply have to get | |
back there." | |
"You can't," she told him. "There are soldiers everywhere." | |
"I'll crawl on my belly in the ditches, if I have to. Travel at | |
night. Sneak through the lines. Fight if I'm discovered and they try | |
to prevent me. There is no alternative. I have to make a try." | |
"You're ill," she said, anxiously staring at his face. | |
He grinned at her. "Not ill. Just hungry." | |
"Come on then." She took his arm. | |
He held back. "Not to the camp. I can't have someone seeing me. In | |
just a little while, I'll be a hunted man--if I'm not one already." | |
"A restaurant, of course." | |
"They took my wallet, Mary, I haven't any money." | |
I have shopping money." | |
"No," he said. "I'll get along. There's nothing that can beat me now." | |
"You really mean that, don't you?" | |
"It just occurred to me," Peter admitted, confused and yet somehow | |
sure that what he had said was not reckless bravado, but a blunt fact. | |
"You're going back?" | |
"I have to, Mary." | |
"And you think you have a chance?" | |
He nodded. | |
"Peter," she began hesitantly. | |
"Yes?" | |
"How much bother would I be?" | |
"You? How do you mean? A bother in what way?" | |
"If I went along." | |
"But you can't. There's no reason for you to." | |
She lifted her chin just a little. "There is a reason, Peter. Almost | |
as if I were being called there. Like a bell ringing in my head--a | |
school bell calling in the children..." | |
"Mary," he said, "that perfume bottle--there was a certain symbol on | |
it, wasn't there?" | |
"Carved in the glass," she told him. "The same symbol, Peter, that | |
was carved into the jade." | |
And the same symbol, he thought, that had been on the letterheads. | |
"Come on," he decided suddenly. "You won't be any bother." | |
"We'll eat first," she said. "We can use the shopping money." | |
They walked down the path, hand in hand, like two teenage | |
sweethearts. | |
"We have lots of time," said Peter. "We can't start for home till | |
dark." | |
They ate at a small restaurant on an obscure street and after that | |
went grocery shopping. They bought a loaf of bread and two rings of | |
bologna and a slab of cheese, which took all of Mary's money, and for | |
the change the grocer sold them an empty bottle in which to carry | |
water. It would serve as a canteen. | |
They walked to the edge of the city and out through the suburbs and | |
into the open country, not traveling fast, for there was no point in | |
trying to go too far before night set in. | |
They found a stream and sat beside it, for all the world like a | |
couple on a picnic. Mary took off her shoes and dabbled her feet in | |
the water and the two of them felt disproportionately happy. | |
Night came and they started out. There was no moon, but the sky was | |
ablaze with stars. Although they took some tumbles and at other times | |
wondered where they were, they kept moving on, staying off the roads, | |
walking through the fields and pastures, skirting the farm houses to | |
avoid barking dogs. | |
It was shortly after midnight that they saw the first of the | |
campfires and swung wide around them. From the top of a ridge, they | |
looked down upon the camp and saw the outlines of tents and the dull | |
shapes of the canvas-covered trucks. And, later on, they almost | |
stumbled into an artillery outfit, but got safely away without | |
encountering the sentries who were certain to be stationed around the | |
perimeter of the bivouac. | |
Now they knew that they were inside the evacuated area, that they | |
were moving through the outer ring of soldiers and guns which hemmed | |
in the building. | |
They moved more cautiously and made slower time. When the first false | |
light of dawn came into the east, they holed up in a dense plum | |
thicket in the corner of a pasture. | |
"I'm tired," sighed Mary, "I wasn't tired all night or, if I was, I | |
didn't know it--but now that we've stopped, I feel exhausted." | |
"We'll eat and sleep," Peter said. | |
"Sleep comes first, I'm too tired to eat." | |
Peter left her and crawled through the thicket to its edge. | |
In the growing light of morning stood the building, a great | |
blue-misted mass that reared above the horizon like a blunted finger | |
pointing at the sky. | |
"Mary!" Peter whispered. "Mary, there it is!" | |
He heard her crawling through the thicket to his side. | |
"Peter, it's a long way off." | |
"Yes, I know it is. But we are going there." | |
They crouched there watching it. | |
"I can't see the bomb," said Mary. "The bomb that's hanging over it." | |
"It's too far off to see." | |
"Why is it us? Why are we the ones who are going back? Why are we the | |
only ones who are not afraid?" | |
"I don't know," said Peter, frowning puzzledly. "No actual reason, | |
that is. I'm going back because I want to--no, because I have to. You | |
see, it was the place I chose. The dying place. Like the elephants | |
crawling off to die where all other elephants die." | |
"But you're all right now, Peter." | |
"That makes no difference--or it doesn't seem to. It was where I | |
found peace and an understanding;" | |
"And there were the symbols, Peter. The symbols on the bottle and the | |
jade." | |
"Let's go back," he said. "Someone will spot us here," | |
"Our gifts were the only ones that had the symbols," Mary persisted, | |
"None of the others had any of them. I asked around. There were no | |
symbols at all on the other gifts." | |
"There's no time to wonder about that. Come on." | |
They crawled back to the center of the thicket. | |
The sun had risen above the horizon now and sent level shafts of | |
light into the thicket and the early morning silence hung over them | |
like a benediction. | |
"Peter," said Mary, "I just can't stay awake any longer. Kiss me | |
before I go to sleep." | |
He kissed her and they clung together, shut from the world by the | |
jagged, twisted, low-growing branches of the plum trees. | |
"I hear the bells," she breathed. "Do you hear them, too?" | |
Peter shook his head. | |
"Like school bells," she said. "Like bells on the first day of | |
school--the first day you ever went." | |
"You're tired," he told her. | |
"I've heard them before. This is not the first time." | |
He kissed her again. "Go to sleep," he said and she did, almost as | |
soon as she lay down and closed her eyes. | |
He sat quietly beside her and his mind retreated to his own hidden | |
depths, searching for the pain within him. But there was no pain. It | |
was gone forever. | |
The pain was gone and the incidence of polio was down and it was a | |
crazy thing to think, but he thought it, anyhow: | |
Missionary! | |
When human missionaries went out to heathen lands, what were the | |
first things that they did? | |
They preached, of course, but there were other things as well. They | |
fought disease and they worked for sanitation and labored to improve | |
the welfare of the people and tried to educate them to a better way | |
of life. And in this way they not only carried out their religious | |
precepts, but gained the confidence of the heathen folk as well. | |
And if an alien missionary came to Earth, what would be among the | |
first things that he was sure to do? Would it not be reasonable that | |
he, too, would fight disease and try to improve the welfare of his | |
chosen charges? Thus he would gain their confidence. Although he | |
could not expect to gain too much at first. He could expect hostility | |
and suspicion. Only a pitiful handful would not resent him or be | |
afraid of him. | |
And if the missionary-- | |
And if THIS missionary-- | |
Peter fell asleep. | |
The roar awakened him and he sat upright, sleep entirely wiped from | |
his mind. | |
The roar still was there, somewhere outside the thicket, but it was | |
receding. | |
"Peter! Peter!" | |
"Quiet, Mary! There is something out there!" | |
The roar turned around and came back again, growing until it was the | |
sound of clanking thunder and the Earth shook with the sound. It | |
receded again. | |
The midday sunlight came down through the branches and made of their | |
hiding place a freckled spot of sun and shade. Peter could smell the | |
musky odor of warm soil and wilted leaf. | |
They crept cautiously through the thicket and when they gained its | |
edge, where the leaves thinned out, they saw the racing tank far down | |
the field. Its roar came to them as it tore along, bouncing and | |
swaying to the ground's unevenness of the great snout of its cannon | |
pugnaciously thrust out before it, like a stiff-arming football | |
player. | |
A road ran clear down the field--a road that Peter was sure had not | |
been there the night before. It was a straight road, absolutely | |
straight, running toward the building, and it was of some metallic | |
stuff that shimmered in the sun. | |
And far off to the left was another road and to the right another, | |
and in the distance the three roads seemed to draw together, as the | |
rails seem to converge when one looks down a railroad track. | |
Other roads running at right angles cut across the three roads, | |
intersecting them so that one gained the impression of three | |
far-reaching ladders set tightly side by side. | |
The tank raced toward one of the intersecting roads, a tank made | |
midget by the distance, and its roar came back to them no louder than | |
the humming of an angry bee. | |
It reached the road and skidded off, whipping around sidewise and | |
slewing along, as if it had hit something smooth and solid that it | |
could not get through, as if it might have struck a soaped metallic | |
wall. There was a moment when it tipped and almost went over, but it | |
stayed upright and finally backed away, then swung around to come | |
lumbering down the field, returning toward the thicket. | |
Halfway down the field, it pivoted around and halted, so that the gun | |
pointed back toward the intersecting road. | |
The gun's muzzle moved downward and flashed and, at the intersecting | |
road, the shell exploded with a burst of light and a puff of smoke. | |
The concussion of the shot slapped hard against the ear. | |
Again and again the gun belched out its shells pointblank. A haze of | |
smoke hung above the tank and road--and the shells still exploded at | |
the road--this side of the road and not beyond it. | |
The tank clanked forward once more until it reached the road. It | |
approached carefully this time and nudged itself along, as if it | |
might be looking for a way to cross. | |
From somewhere a long distance off came the crunching sound of | |
artillery. An entire battery of guns seemed to be firing. They fired | |
for a while, then grudgingly quit. | |
The tank still nosed along the road like a dog sniffing beneath a | |
fallen tree for a hidden rabbit. | |
"There's something there that's stopping them," said Peter. | |
"A wall," Mary guessed. "An invisible wall of some sort, but one they | |
can't get through." | |
"Or shoot through, either. They tried to break through with gunfire | |
and they didn't even dent it." | |
He crouched there, watching as the tank nosed along the road. It | |
reached the point where the road to the left came down to intersect | |
the crossroad. The tank sheered off to follow the left-hand one, | |
bumping along with its forward armor shoved against the unseen wall. | |
Boxed in, thought Peter--those roads have broken up and boxed in all | |
the military units. A tank in one pen and a dozen tanks in another, a | |
battery of artillery in another, the motor pool in yet another. Boxed | |
in and trapped; penned up and useless. | |
And we, he wondered--are we boxed in as well? | |
A group of soldiers came tramping down the right-hand road, Peter | |
spotted them from far off, black dots moving down the road, heading | |
east, away from the building. When they came closer, he saw that they | |
carried no guns and slogged along without the slightest semblance of | |
formation and he could see from the way they walked that they were | |
dog-tired, | |
He had not been aware that Mary had left his side until she came | |
creeping back again, ducking her head to keep her hair from being | |
caught in the low-hanging branches. | |
She sat down beside him and handed him a thick slice of bread and a | |
chunk of bologna. She set the bottle of water down between them. | |
"It was the building," she said, "that built the roads." | |
Peter nodded, his mouth full of bread and meat. | |
"They want to make it easy to get to the building," Mary said. "The | |
building wants to make it easy for people to come and visit it." | |
"The bells again?" he asked. | |
She smiled and said, "The bells." | |
The soldiers now had come close enough to see the tank. They stopped | |
and stood in the road, looking at it. | |
Then four of them turned off the road and walked out into the field, | |
heading for the tank. The others sat down and waited. | |
"The wall only works one way," said Mary. | |
"More likely," Peter told her, "it works for tanks, but doesn't work | |
for people." | |
"The building doesn't want to keep the people out." | |
The soldiers crossed the field and the tank came out to meet them. It | |
stopped and the crew crawled out of it and climbed down. The soldiers | |
and the crew stood talking and one of the soldiers kept swinging his | |
arms in gestures, pointing here and there. | |
From far away came the sound of heavy guns again. | |
"Some of them," said Peter, "still are trying to blast down the walls." | |
Finally the soldiers and the tank crew walked back to the road, | |
leaving the tank deserted in the field. | |
And that must be the way it was with the entire military force which | |
had hemmed in the building, Peter told himself. The roads and walls | |
had cut it into bits, had screened it off--and now the tanks and the | |
big guns and the planes were just so many ineffective toys of an | |
infant race, lying scattered in a thousand playpens. | |
Out on the road, the foot soldiers and the tank crew slogged | |
eastward, retreating from the siege which had failed so | |
ingloriously. | |
In their thicket, Mary and Peter sat and watched the Building. | |
"You said they came from the stars," said Mary. "But why did they | |
come here? Why did they bother with us? Why did they come at all?" | |
"To save us," Peter offered slowly. "To save us from ourselves. Or to | |
exploit and enslave us. Or to use our planet as a military base. For | |
any one of a hundred reasons. Maybe for a reason we couldn't | |
understand even if they told us." | |
"You don't believe those other reasons, the ones about enslaving us | |
or using Earth as a military base. If you believed that, we wouldn't | |
be going to the building." | |
"No, I don't believe them. I don't because I had cancer and I haven't | |
any longer. I don't because the polio began clearing up on the same | |
day that they arrived. They're doing good for us, exactly the same as | |
the missionaries did good among the primitive, disease-ridden people | |
to whom they were assigned. I hope--" | |
He sat and stared across the field, at the trapped and deserted tank, | |
at the shining ladder of the roads. | |
"I hope," he said, "they don't do what some of the missionaries did. | |
I hope they don't destroy our self-respect with alien Mother | |
Hubbards. I hope they don't save us from ringworm and condemn us to a | |
feeling of racial inferiority. I hope they don't chop down the | |
coconuts and hand us..." | |
But they know about us, he told himself. They know all there is to | |
know. They've studied us for--how long? Squatting in a drugstore | |
corner, masquerading as a cigarette machine. Watching us from the | |
counter in the guise of stamp machine. | |
And they wrote letters--letters to every head of state in all the | |
world. Letters that might, when finally deciphered, explain what they | |
were about. Or that might make certain demands. Or that might, just | |
possibly, be no more than applications for permits to build a mission | |
or a church or a hospital or a school. | |
They know us, he thought. They know; for example, that we're suckers | |
for anything that's free, so they handed out free gifts--just like | |
the quiz shows and contests run by radio and television and Chambers | |
of Commerce, except that there was no competition and everybody won. | |
Throughout the afternoon, Peter and Mary watched the road and during | |
that time small groups of soldiers had come limping down it. But now, | |
for an hour or more, there had been no one on the road. | |
They started out just before dark, walking across the field, passing | |
through the wall-that-wasn't-there to reach the road. And they headed | |
west along the road, going toward the purple cloud of the building | |
that reared against the redness of the sunset. | |
They traveled through the night and they did not have to dodge and | |
hide, as they had that first night, for there was no one on the road | |
except the one lone soldier they met. | |
By the time they saw him, they had come far enough so that the great | |
shaft of the building loomed halfway up the sky, a smudge of misty | |
brightness in the bright starlight. | |
The soldier was sitting in the middle of the road and he'd taken off | |
his shoes and set them neatly beside him. | |
"My feet are killing me," he said by way of greeting. | |
So they sat down with him to keep him company and Peter took out the | |
water bottle and the loaf of bread and the cheese and bologna and | |
spread them on the pavement with wrapping paper as a picnic cloth. | |
They ate in silence for a while and finally the soldier said, "Well, | |
this is the end of it." | |
They did not ask the question, but waited patiently, eating bread and | |
cheese. | |
"This is the end of soldiering," the soldier told them. "This is the | |
end of war." | |
He gestured out toward the pens fashioned by the roads and in one | |
nearby pen were three self-propelled artillery pieces and in another | |
was an ammunition dump and another pen held military vehicles. | |
"How are you going to fight a war," the soldier asked, "if the things | |
back there can chop up your armies into checkerboards? A tank ain't | |
worth a damn guarding ten acres, not when it isn't able to get out of | |
those ten acres. A big gun ain't any good to you if you can't fire | |
but half a mile." | |
"You think they would?" asked Mary, "Anywhere, I mean?" | |
"They done it here. Why not somewhere else? Why not any place that | |
they wanted to? They stopped us. They stopped us cold and they never | |
shed a single drop of blood. Not a casualty among us. | |
He swallowed the bit of bread and cheese that was in his mouth and | |
reached for the water bottle. He drank, his Adam's apple bobbing up | |
and down. | |
"I'm coming back," he said. "I'm going out and get my girl and we | |
both are coming back. The things in that building maybe need some | |
help and I'm going to help them if there's a way of doing it. And if | |
they don't need no help, why, then I'm going to figure out some way | |
to let them know I'm thankful that they came." | |
"Things? You saw some things?" | |
The soldier stared at Peter. "No, I never saw anything at all." | |
"But this business of going out to get your girl and both of you | |
coming back? How did you get that idea? Why not go back right now | |
with us?" | |
"It wouldn't be right," the soldier protested. "Or it doesn't seem | |
just right. I got to see her first and tell her how I feel. Besides, | |
I got a present for her." | |
"She'll be glad to see you," Mary told him softly. "She'll like the | |
present." | |
"She sure will." The soldier grinned proudly. "It was something that | |
she wanted." | |
He reached in his pocket and took out a leather box. Fumbling with | |
the catch, he snapped it open. The starlight blazed softly on the | |
necklace that lay inside the box. | |
Mary reached out her hand. "May I?" she asked, | |
"Sure," the soldier said. "I want you to take a look at it. You'd | |
know if a girl would like it." | |
Mary lifted it from the box and held it in her hand, a stream of | |
starlit fire. | |
"Diamonds?" asked Peter. | |
"I don't know," the soldier said. "Might be. It looks real expensive. | |
There's a pendant, sort of, at the bottom of it, of green stone that | |
doesn't sparkle much, but--" | |
"Peter," Mary interrupted, "have you got a match?" | |
The soldier dipped his hand into a pocket "I got a lighter, miss. | |
That thing gave me a lighter. A beaut!" | |
He snapped it open and the blaze flamed out. Mary held the pendant | |
close. | |
"It's the symbol," she said. "Just like on my bottle of perfume." | |
"That carving?" asked the soldier, pointing. "It's on the lighter, | |
too." | |
"Something gave you this?" Peter urgently wanted to know. | |
"A box. Except that it really was more than a box. I reached down to | |
put my hand on it and it coughed up a lighter and when it did, I | |
thought of Louise and the lighter she had given me. I'd lost it and | |
I felt bad about it, and here was one just like it except for the | |
carving on the side. And when I thought of Louise, the box made a | |
funny noise and out popped the box with the necklace in it." | |
The soldier leaned forward, his young face solemn in the glow from | |
the lighter's flame. | |
"You know what I think?" he said. "I think that box was one of them. | |
There are stories, but you can't believe everything you hear..." | |
He looked from one to the other of them. "You don't laugh at me," he | |
remarked wonderingly. | |
Peter shook his head. "That's about the last thing we'd do, Soldier." | |
Mary handed back the necklace and the lighter. The soldier put them | |
in his pocket and began putting on his shoes. | |
"I got to get on," he said. "Thanks for the chow." | |
"We'll be seeing you," said Peter. | |
"I hope so." | |
"I know we will," Mary stated positively. | |
They watched him trudge away, then walked on in the other direction. | |
Mary said to Peter, "The symbol is the mark of them. The ones who get | |
the symbol are the ones who will go back. It's a passport, a seal of | |
approval." | |
"Or," Peter amended, "the brand of ownership." | |
"They'd be looking for certain kinds of people. They wouldn't want | |
anybody who was afraid of them. They'd want people who had some faith | |
in them." | |
"What do they want us for?" Peter fretted. "That's what bothers me. | |
What use can we be to them? The soldier wants to help them, but they | |
don't need help from us. They don't need help from anyone." | |
"We've never seen one of them," said Mary. "Unless the box was one of | |
them." | |
And the cigarette machines, thought Peter. The cigarette machines and | |
God knows what else. | |
"And yet," said Mary, "they know about us. They've watched us and | |
studied us. They know us inside out. They can reach deep within us | |
and know what each of might want and then give it to us. A rod and | |
reel for Johnny and a piece of jade for you. And the rod and reel | |
were a human rod and reel and the jade was Earth jade. They even know | |
about the soldier's girl. They knew she would like a shiny necklace | |
and they knew she was the kind of person that they wanted to come | |
back again and..." | |
"The Saucers," Peter said. "I wonder if it was the Saucers, after | |
all, watching us for years, learning all about us." | |
How many years would it take, he wondered, from a standing start, to | |
learn all there was to know about the human race? For it would be | |
from a standing start, to them, all of humanity would have been a | |
complex alien race and they would have had to feel their way along, | |
learning one fact here and another there. And they would make | |
mistakes; at times their deductions would be wrong, and that would | |
set them back. | |
"I don't know," said Peter. "I can't figure it out at all." | |
They walked down the shiny metal road that glimmered in the | |
starlight, with the building growing from a misty phantom to a | |
gigantic wall that rose against the sky to blot out the stars. A | |
thousand stories high and covering more than a hundred acres, it was | |
a structure that craned your head and set your neck to aching and | |
made your brain spin with its glory and its majesty. | |
And even when you drew near it, you could not see the dropped and | |
cradled bomb, resting in the emptiness above it, for the bomb was too | |
far away for seeing. | |
But you could see the little cubicles sliced off by the roads and, | |
within the cubicles, the destructive toys of a violent race, deserted | |
now, just idle hunks of fashioned metal. | |
They came just before dawn, to the great stairs that ran up to the | |
central door. As they moved across the flat stone approach to the | |
stairs, they felt the hush and the deepness of the peace that lay in | |
the building's shadow. | |
Hand in hand, they went up the stairs and came to the great bronze | |
door and there they stopped. Turning around, they looked back in | |
silence. | |
The roads spun out like wheel spokes from the building's hub as far | |
as they could see, and the crossing roads ran in concentric circles | |
so that it seemed they stood in the center of a spider's web. | |
Deserted farm houses, with their groups of buildings--barns, | |
granaries, garages, silos, hog pens, machine sheds--stood in the | |
sectors marked off by the roads, and in other sectors lay the | |
machines of war, fit now for little more than birds' nests or a | |
hiding place for rabbits. Bird songs came trilling up from the | |
pastures and the fields and you could smell the freshness and the | |
coolness of the countryside. | |
"It's good," said Mary. "It's our country, Peter." | |
"It was our country," Peter corrected her. "Nothing will ever be | |
quite the same again." | |
"You aren't afraid, Peter?" | |
"Not a bit. Just baffled." | |
"But you seemed so sure before." | |
"I still am sure," he said, "Emotionally, I am as sure as ever that | |
everything's all right." | |
"Of course everything's all right. There was a polio epidemic and now | |
it has died out. An army has been routed without a single death. An | |
atomic bomb was caught and halted before it could go off. Can't you | |
see, Peter, they're already making this a better world. Cancer and | |
polio gone--two things that Man had fought for years and was far from | |
conquering. War stopped, disease stopped, atomic bombs | |
stopped--things we couldn't solve for ourselves that were solved for | |
us." | |
"I know all that," said Peter. "They'll undoubtedly also put an end | |
to crime and graft and violence and everything else that has been | |
tormenting and degrading mankind since it climbed down out of the | |
trees." | |
"What more do you want?" | |
"Nothing more, I guess--it's just that it's circumstantial. It's not | |
real evidence. All that we know, or think we know, we've learned from | |
inference. We have no proof--no actual, solid proof." | |
"We have faith. We must have faith. If you can't believe in someone | |
or something that wipes out disease and war, what can you believe in?" | |
"That's what bothers me." | |
"The world is built on faith," said Mary. "Faith in God and in | |
ourselves and in the decency of mankind." | |
"You're wonderful," exclaimed Peter. | |
He caught her tight and kissed her and she clung against him and when | |
finally they let each other go, the great bronze door was opening. | |
Silently, they walked across the threshold with arms around each | |
other, into a foyer that arched high overhead. There were murals on | |
the high arched ceiling, and others paneled in the walls, and four | |
great flights of stairs led upward. | |
But the stairways were roped off by heavy velvet cords. Another cord, | |
hooked into gleaming standards, and signs with pointing arrows showed | |
them which way to go. | |
Obediently, walking in the hush that came close to reverence, they | |
went across the foyer to the single open door. | |
They stepped into a large room, with great, tall, slender windows | |
that let in the morning sunlight, and it fell across the satiny | |
newness of the blackboards, the big -armed class chairs, the heavy | |
reading tables, case after case of books, and the lectern on the | |
lecture platform. | |
They stood and looked at it and Mary said to Peter: "I was right. | |
They were school bells, after all. We've come to school, Peter. The | |
first day we ever went to school." | |
"Kindergarten," Peter said, and his voice choked as he pronounced the | |
word. | |
It was just right, he thought, so humanly right: The sunlight and the | |
shadow, the rich bindings of the books, the dark patina of the wood, | |
the heavy silence over everything. It was an Earthly classroom in the | |
most scholarly tradition. It was Cambridge and Oxford and the | |
Sorbonne and an Eastern ivy college all rolled into one. | |
The aliens hadn't missed a bet--not a single bet. | |
"I have to go," said Mary, "You wait right here for me." | |
"I'll wait right here," he promised. | |
He watched her cross the room and open a door. Through it, he saw a | |
corridor that went on for what seemed miles and miles. Then she shut | |
the door and he was alone. | |
He stood there for a moment, then swung swiftly around. Almost | |
running across the foyer, he reached the great bronze door. But there | |
was no door, or none that he could see. There was not even a crack | |
where a door should be. He went over the wall inch by inch and he | |
found no door. | |
He turned away from the wall and stood in the foyer, naked of soul, | |
and felt the vast emptiness of the building thunder in his brain. | |
Up there, he thought, up there for a thousand stories, the building | |
stretched into the sky. And down here was kindergarten and up on the | |
second floor, no doubt, first grade, and you'd go up and up and what | |
would be the end--and the purpose of that end? | |
When did you graduate? | |
Or did you ever graduate? | |
And when you graduated, what would you be? | |
What would you he? he asked. | |
Would you be human still? | |
They would be coming to school for days, the ones who had been | |
picked, the ones who had passed the strange entrance examination that | |
was necessary to attend this school. They'd come down the metal roads | |
and climb the steps and the great bronze door would open and they | |
would enter. And others would come, too, out of curiosity, but if | |
they did not have the symbol, the doors would not open for them. | |
And those who did come in, when and if they felt the urge to flee, | |
would find there were no doors. | |
He went back into the classroom and stood where he had stood before. | |
Those books, he wondered. What was in them? In just a little while, | |
he'd have the courage to pick one out and see. And the lectern? What | |
would stand behind the lectern? | |
What, not who. | |
The door opened and Mary came across the room to him. | |
"There are apartments out there," she said. "The cutest apartments | |
you have ever seen. And one of them has our names on it and there are | |
others that have other names and some that have no names at all. | |
There are other people coming, Peter. We were just a little early. We | |
were the ones who started first. We got here before the school bell | |
rang." | |
Peter nodded, "Let's sit down and wait," he said. | |
Side by side, they sat down, waiting for the Teacher. | |
--Clifford D. Simak | |
From: gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/galaxymagazine-1953-07 | |
See also: | |
Immigrant by Clifford D. Simak (similar theme) | |
Jackpot by Clifford D. Simak (similar theme) | |
tags: sci-fi | |
# Tags | |
sci-fi |