“I’ve got quinidine,” the pharmacist spoke up. “That’s probably exactly what he needs. But there’s no way to get it up to him.”
Earl Colvig, who headed the West Marin Police, said, “I understand that the Army people at Cheyenne are going to make another try to reach him later this year.”
“Take your quinidine to Cheyenne,” Cas Stone said to the pharmacist.
“To Cheyenne?” the pharmacist quavered. “There aren’t any through roads over the Sierras any more. I’d never get there.”
In as calm a voice as possible, June Raub said, “Perhaps he isn’t actually ill; perhaps it’s only hypochondria, from being isolated and alone up there all these years. Something about the way he detailed each symptom made me suspect that.” However, hardly anyone heard her. The three representatives from Bolinas, she noticed, had gone quietly over beside the radio and were stooping down to listen to the reading. “Maybe he won’t die,” she said, half to herself.
At that, the glasses man glanced up at her. She saw on his face an expression of shock and numbness, as if the realization that the man in the satellite might be sick and would die was too much for him. The illness of his own daughter, she thought, had not affected him so.
A silence fell over the people in the furthest part of the Hall, and June Raub looked to see what had happened.
At the door, a gleaming platform of machinery had rolled into sight. Hoppy Harrington had arrived.
“Hoppy, you know what?” Cas Stone called. “Dangerfield said he’s got something wrong with him, maybe his heart.”
They all became silent, waiting for the phocomelus to speak.
Hoppy rolled past them and up to the radio; he halted his ’mobile, sent one of his manual extensions over to delicately diddle at the tuning knob. The three representatives from Bolinas respectfully stood aside. Static rose, then faded, and the voice of Walt Dangerfield came in clear and strong. The reading was still in progress, and Hoppy, in the center of his machinery, listened intently. He, and the others in the room, continued to listen without speaking until at last the sound faded out as the satellite passed beyond the range of reception. Then, once again, there was only the static.
All of a sudden, in a voice exactly like Dangerfield’s, the phocomelus said, “Well, my dear friends, what’ll we have next to entertain us?”
This time the imitation was so perfect that several people in the room gasped. Others clapped, and Hoppy smiled. “How about some more of that juggling?” the pharmacist called. “I like that.”
“ ‘Juggling,’ ” the phocomelus said, this time exactly in the pharmacist’s quavering, prissy voice. “ ‘I like that.’ ”
“No,” Cas Stone said, “I want to hear him do Dangerfield; do some more of that, Hoppy. Come on.”
The phocomelus spun his ’mobile around so that he faced the audience. “Hoode hoode hoo,” he chuckled in the low, easy-going tones which they all knew so well. June Raub caught her breath; it was eerie, the phoce’s ability to mimic. It always disconcerted her … if she shut her eyes she could imagine that it actually was Dangerfield still talking, still in contact with them. She did so, deliberately pretending to herself. He’s not sick, he’s not dying, she told herself; listen to him. As if in answer to her own thoughts, the friendly voice was murmuring, “I’ve got a little pain here in my chest, but it doesn’t amount to a thing; don’t worry about it, friends. Upset stomach, most likely. Over-indulgence. And what do we take for that? Does anybody out there remember?”
A man in the audience shouted, “I remember: alkalize with Alka Seltzer!”
“Hoode hoode hoo,” the warm voice chuckled. “That’s right. Good for you. Now let me give you a tip on how to store gladiola bulbs all through the winter without fear of annoying pests. Simply wrap them in aluminum foil.”
People in the room clapped, and June Raub heard someone close by her say, “That’s exactly what Dangerfield would have said.” It was the glasses man from Bolinas. She opened her eyes and saw the expression on his face. I must have looked like that, she realized, that night when I first heard Hoppy imitating him.
“And now,” Hoppy continued, still in Dangerfield’s voice, “I’ll perform a few feats of skill that I’ve been working on. I think you’ll all get a bang out of this, dear friends. Just watch.”
Eldon Blaine, the glasses man from Bolinas, saw the phocomelus place a coin on the floor several feet from his ’mobile. The extensions withdrew, and Hoppy, still murmuring in Dangerfield’s voice, concentrated on the coin until all at once, with a clatter, it slid across the floor toward him. The people in the Hall clapped. Flushing with pleasure, the phocomelus nodded to them and then once more set the coin down away from him, this time farther than before.
Magic, Eldon thought. What Pat said; the phoces can do that in compensation for not having been born with arms or legs, it’s nature’s way of helping them survive. Again the coin slid toward the ’mobile and again the people in the Foresters’ Hall applauded.
To Mrs. Raub, Eldon said, “He does this every night?”
“No,” she answered. “He does various tricks; I’ve never seen this one before, but of course I’m not always here—I have so much to do, helping to keep our community functioning. It’s remarkable, isn’t it?”
Action at a distance, Eldon realized. Yes, it is remarkable. And we must have him, he said to himself. No doubt of it now. For when Walt Dangerfield dies—and it is becoming obvious that he will, soon—we would have this memory of him, this reconstruction, embodied in this phoce. Like a phonograph record, to be played back forever.
“Does he frighten you?” June Raub asked.
“No,” Eldon said. “Should he?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a thoughtful voice.
“Has he ever transmitted to the satellite?” Eldon asked. “A lot of other handies have. Odd he hasn’t, with his ability.”
June Raub said, “He intended to. Last year he started building a transmitter; he’s been working on it off and on, but evidently nothing came of it. He tries all sorts of projects … he’s always busy. You can see the tower. Come outside a minute and I’ll show you.”
He followed her to the door of the Foresters’ Hall. Together, they stood outside in the darkness until they were able to see. Yes, there it was, a peculiar, crooked mast, rising up into the night sky but then breaking off abruptly.
“That’s his house,” June Raub said. “It’s on his roof. And he did it without any help from us; he can amplify the impulses from his brain into what he calls his servo-assists, and that way he’s quite strong, much more so than any unfunny man.” She was silent a moment “We all admire him. He’s done a lot for us.”
“Yes,” Eldon said.
“You came here to nap him away from us,” June Raub said quietly. “Didn’t you?”
Startled, he protested, “No, Mrs. Raub—honest, we came to listen to the satellite; you know that.”
“It’s been tried before,” Mrs. Raub said. “You can’t nap him because he won’t let you. He doesn’t like your community down there; he knows about your ordinance. We have no such discrimination up here and he’s grateful for that. He’s very sensitive about himself.”
Disconcerted, Eldon Blaine moved away from the woman, back toward the door of the Hall.
“Wait,” Mrs. Raub said. “You don’t have to worry: I won’t say anything to anyone. I don’t blame you for seeing him and wanting him for your own community. You know, he wasn’t born here in West Marin. One day, about three years ago, he came rolling into town on his ’mobile, not this one but the older one the Government built before the Emergency. He had rolled all the way up from San Francisco, he told us. He wanted to find a place where he could settle down, and no one had given him that, up until us.”
“Okay,” Eldon murmured. “I understand.”
“Everything nowadays can be napped,” Mrs. Raub said. “All it take is sufficient force. I saw your police-cart parked down the road
, and I know that the two men with you are on your police force. But Hoppy does what he wants. I think if you tried to coerce him he’d kill you; it wouldn’t be much trouble for him and he wouldn’t mind.”
After a pause Eldon said, “I—appreciate your candor.”
Together, silently, they re-entered the Foresters’ Hall.
All eyes were on Hoppy Harrington, who was still immersed in his imitation of Dangerfield. “… it seems to go away when I eat,” the phocomelus was saying, “And that makes me think it’s an ulcer, not my heart. So if any doctors are listening and they have access to a transmitter—”
A man in the audience interrupted, “I’m going to get hold of my doctor in San Rafael; I’m not kidding when I say that. We can’t have another dead man circling around and around the Earth.” It was the same man who had spoken before; he sounded even more earnest now. “Or if as Mrs. Raub says it’s just in his mind, couldn’t we get Doc Stockstill to help him?”
Eldon Blaine thought, But Hoppy was not here in the Hall when Dangerfield said those words. How can he mimic something he did not hear?
And then he understood. It was obvious. The phocomelus had a radio receiver at his house; before coming to the Foresters’ Hall he had sat by himself in his house, listening to the satellite. That meant there were two functioning radios in West Marin, compared to none at all in Bolinas. Eldon felt rage and despair. We have nothing, he realized. And these people here have everything, even an extra, private radio set, for just one person alone.
It’s like before the war, he thought blindly. They’re living as good as then. It isn’t fair.
Turning, he plunged back out of the Hall, into the night darkness. No one noticed him; they did not care. They were far too busy arguing about Dangerfield and his health to pay attention to anything else.
Coming up the road, carrying a kerosene lantern, three figures confronted him: a tall, skinny man, a young woman with dank red hair, and between them a small girl.
“Is the reading over?” the woman asked. “Are we too late?”
“I don’t know,” Eldon said, and continued on past them.
“Oh, we missed it,” the little girl was clamoring. “I told you we should have hurried!”
“Well, we’ll go on inside anyhow,” the man told her, and then their voices faded away as Eldon Blaine, despairing, continued on into the darkness, away from the sounds and presence of other people, of the wealthy West Mariners who had so much.
Hoppy Harrington, doing his imitation of Dangerfield, glanced up to see the Kellers, with their little girl, enter the room and take seats in the rear. About time, he said to himself, glad of a greater audience. But then he felt nervous, because the little girl was scrutinizing him. There was something in the way she looked at him that upset him; it had always been so, about Edie. He did not like it, and he ceased suddenly.
“Go ahead, Hoppy,” Cas Stone called.
“Go on,” other voices chimed in.
“Do that one about Kool Aid,” a woman called. “Sing that, the little tune the Kool Aid twins sing; you know.”
“ ‘Kool Aid, Kool Aid, can’t wait,’ ” Hoppy sang, but once more he stopped. “I guess that’s enough for tonight,” he said.
The room became silent.
“My brother,” the little Keller girl spoke up, “he says that Mr. Dangerfield is somewhere in this room.”
Hoppy laughed. “That’s right,” he said excitedly.
“Has he done the reading?” Edie Keller asked.
“Oh yeah, the reading’s over,” Earl Colvig said, “but we weren’t listening to that; we’re listening to Hoppy and watching what he does. He did a lot of funny things tonight, didn’t you, Hoppy?”
“Show the little girl that with the coin,” June Raub said. “I think she’d enjoy that.”
“Yes, do that again,” the pharmacist called from his seat. “That was good; we’d all like to see that again, I’m sure,” In his eagerness to watch he rose to his feet, forgetting the people behind him.
“My brother,” Edie said quietly, “wants to hear the reading. That’s what he came for. He doesn’t care about anything with a coin.”
“Be still,” Bonny said to her.
Brother, Hoppy thought. She doesn’t have any brother. He laughed out loud at that, and several people in the audience automatically smiled. “Your brother?” he said, wheeling his ’mobile toward the child. “Your brother?” He halted the ’mobile directly before her, still laughing. “I can do the reading,” he said. “I can be Philip and Mildred and everybody in the book; I can be Dangerfield—sometimes I actually am. I was tonight and that’s why your brother thinks Dangerfield’s in the room. What it is, it’s me.” He looked around at the people. “Isn’t that right, folks? Isn’t it actually Hoppy?”
“That’s right, Hoppy,” Cas Stone agreed, nodding. The others nodded, too, all of them, or at least most of them.
“Christ sake, Hoppy,” Bonny Keller said severely. “Calm down or you’ll shake yourself right off your cart.” She eyed him in her stern domineering way and he felt himself recede; he drew back in spite of himself. “What’s been going on here?” Bonny demanded.
Fred Quinn, the pharmacist, said, “Why, Hoppy’s been imitating Walt Dangerfield so well you’d think it was him!”
The others nodded, chiming in with their agreement.
“You have no brother, Edie,” Hoppy said to the little girl. “Why do you say your brother wants to hear the reading when you have no brother?” He laughed and laughed, The girl remained silent. “Can I see him?” he asked. “Can I talk to him? Let me hear him talk and—I’ll do an imitation of him.” Now he was laughing so hard that he could barely see; tears filled his eyes and he had to wipe them away with an extensor.
“That’ll be quite an imitation,” Cas Stone said.
“Like to hear that,” Earl Colvig said. “Do that, Hoppy.”
“I’ll do it,” Hoppy said, “as soon as he says something to me.” He sat in the center of his ’mobile, waiting. “I’m waiting,” he said.
“That’s enough,” Bonny Keller said. “Leave my child alone.” Her cheeks were red with anger.
To Edie, ignoring the child’s mother, Hoppy said, “Where is he? Tell me where—is he nearby?”
“Lean down,” Edie said. “Toward me. And he’ll speak to you.” Her face, like her mother’s, was grim.
Hoppy leaned toward her, cocking his head on one side, in a mock-serious gesture of attention.
A voice, speaking from inside him, as if it were a part of the interior world, said, “How did you fix that record changer? How did you really do that?”
Hoppy screamed.
Everyone was staring at him, white-faced; they were on their feet, now, all of them rigid.
“I heard Jim Fergesson,” Hoppy said.
The girl regarded him calmly. “Do you want to hear my brother say more, Mr. Harrington? Say some more words to him, Bill; he wants you to say more.”
And, in Hoppy’s interior world, the voice said, “It looked like you healed it. It looked like instead of replacing that broken spring—”
Hoppy wheeled his cart wildly, spun up the aisle to the far end of the room, wheeled again and sat panting, a long way from the Keller girl; his heart pounded and he stared at her. She returned his stare silently, but now with the faint trace of a smile on her lips.
“You heard my brother, didn’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” Hoppy said. “Yes I did.”
“And you know where he is.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Don’t do it again. Please. I won’t do any more imitations if you don’t want me to; okay?” He looked pleadingly at her, but there was no response there, no promise. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I believe you now.”
“Good lord,” Bonny said softly. She turned toward her husband, as if questioning him. George shook his head but did not answer.
Slowly and steadily the child said, “You can see him too, if
you want, Mr. Harrington. Would you like to see what he looks like?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
“Did he scare you?” Now the child was openly smiling at him, but her smile was empty and cold. “He paid you back because you were picking on me. It made him angry, so he did that.”
Coming up beside Hoppy, George Keller said, “What happened, Hop?”
“Nothing,” he said shortly.
Scared me, he thought. Fooled me, by imitating Jim Fergesson; he took me completely in, I really thought it was Jim again. Edie was conceived the day Jim Fergesson died; I know because Bonny told me once, and I think her brother was conceived simultaneously. But—it’s not true; it wasn’t Jim. It was—an imitation.
“You see,” the child said, “Bill does imitations, too.”
“Yes.” He nodded, trembling. “Yes, he does.”
“They’re good.” Edie’s dark eyes sparkled.
“Yes, very good,” Hoppy said. As good as mine, he thought. Maybe better than mine. I better be careful of him, he thought, of her brother Bill; I better stay away. I really learned my lesson.
It could have been Fergesson, he realized, in there. Reborn, what they call reincarnation; the bomb might have done it somehow in a way I don’t understand. Then it’s not an imitation and I was right the first time, but how’ll I know? He won’t tell me; he hates me, I guess because I made fun of his sister Edie. That was a mistake; I shouldn’t have done that.
“Hoode hoode hoo,” he said, and a few people turned his way; he got some attention, here and there in the room. “Well, this is your old pal,” he said. But his heart wasn’t in it; his voice shook. He grinned at them, but no one grinned back. “Maybe we can pick up the reading a little while more,” he said. “Edie’s brother wants to listen to it.” Sending out an extensor, he turned up the volume of the radio, tuned the dial.
You can have what you want, he thought to himself. The reading or anything else. How long have you been in there? Only seven years? It seems more like forever. As if—you’ve always existed. It had been a terribly old, wizened, white thing that had spoken to him. Something hard and small, floating. Lips overgrown with downy hair that hung trailing, streamers of it, wispy and dry. I bet it was Fergesson, he said to himself; it felt like him. He’s in there, inside that child.