"Huh?"
"Maybe we are just — pets."
Pets! Bill Eisenberg's morale had stood up well in the face of danger and uncertainty. This attack on it was more subtle. Pets! He had thought of Graves and himself as prisoners of war, or, possibly, objects of scientific research. But pets!
"I know how you feel," Graves went on, watching his face, "It's ... it's humiliating from an anthropocentric viewpoint. But I think it may be true. I may as well tell you my own private theory as to the possible nature of X, and the relation of X to the human race. I haven't up to now, as it is almost sheer conjecture, based on very little data. But it does cover the known facts.
"I conceive of the X creatures as being just barely aware of the existence of men, unconcerned by them, and almost completely uninterested in them."
"But they hunt us!"
"Maybe. Or maybe they just pick us up occasionally by accident. A lot of men have dreamed about an impingement of nonhuman intelligences on the human race. Almost without exception the dream has taken one of two forms, invasion and war, or exploration and mutual social intercourse.
Both concepts postulate that nonhumans are enough like us either to fight with us or talk to us — treat us as equals, one way or the other. I don't believe that X is sufficiently interested in human beings to want to enslave them, or even exterminate them. They may not even study us, even when we come under their notice. They may lack the scientific spirit in the sense of having a monkeylike curiosity about everything that moves. For that matter, how thoroughly do we study other life forms? Did you ever ask your goldfish for their views on goldfish poetry or politics? Does a termite think that a woman's place is in the home? Do beavers prefer blondes or brunettes?"
"You are joking."
"No, I'm not! Maybe the life forms I mentioned don't have such involved ideas. My point is: if they did, or do, we'd never guess it. I don't think X conceives of the human race as intelligent."
Bill chewed this for a while, then added: "Where do you think they came from, Doc? Mars, maybe? Or clear out of the Solar System?"
"Not necessarily. Not even probably. It's my guess that they came from the same place we did — from up out of the slime of this planet."
"Really, Doc —"
"I mean it. And don't give me that funny look. I may be sick, but I'm not balmy. Creation took eight days!"
"Huh?"
"I'm using biblical language. 'And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' And so it came to pass. But nobody mentioned the stratosphere."
-
"Doc — are you sure you feel all right?"
"Dammit — quit trying to psychoanalyze me! I'll drop the allegory. What I mean is: We aren't the latest nor the highest stage in evolution. First the oceans were populated. Then lungfish to amphibian, and so on up, until the continents were populated, and, in time, man ruled the surface of the earth — or thought he did. But did evolution stop there? I think not. Consider — from a fish's point of view air is a hard vacuum. From our point of view the upper reaches of the atmosphere, sixty, seventy, maybe a hundred thousand feet up seem like a vacuum and unfit to sustain life. But it's not vacuum. It's thin, yes, but there is matter there and radiant energy. Why not life, intelligent life, highly evolved as it would have to be — but evolved from the same ancestry as ourselves and fish? We wouldn't see it happen; man hasn't been aware, in a scientific sense, that long. When our grand-daddies were swinging in the trees, it had already happened."
Eisenberg took a deep breath. "Just wait a minute, Doc. I'm not disputing the theoretical possibility of your thesis, but it seems to me it is out on direct evidence alone. We've never seen them, had no direct evidence of them. At least, not until lately. And we should have seen them."
"Not necessarily. Do ants see men? I doubt it."
"Yes — but, consarn it, a man has better eyes than an ant."
"Better eyes for what? For his own needs. Suppose the X-creatures are too high up, or too tenuous, or too fast-moving! for us to notice them. Even a thing as big and as solid and as slow as an airplane can go up high enough to go out of sight, even on a clear day. If X is tenuous and even semitransparent, we never would see them — not even as occultations of stars, or shadows against the moon — though as a matter of fact there have been some very strange stories of just that sort of thing."
Eisenberg got up and stomped up and down. "Do you mean to suggest," he demanded, "that creatures so insubstantial they can float in a soft vacuum built the Pillars?"
"Why not? Try explaining how a half-finished, naked embryo like homo sapiens built the Empire State Building."
Bill shook his head. "I don't get it."
"You don't try. Where do you think this came from? Graves held up one of the miraculous little water spheres.
"My guess is that life on this planet is split three ways, with almost no intercourse between the three. Ocean culture, land culture, and another — call it stratoculture. Maybe a fourth down under the crust — but we don't know. We know a little about life under the sea, because we are curious. But how much do they know of us? Do a few dozen bathysphere descents constitute an invasion? A fish that sees our bathysphere might go home and take to his bed with a sick headache, but he wouldn't talk about it, and he wouldn't be believed if he did. If a lot of fish see us and swear out affidavits, along comes a fish-psychologist and explains it as mass hallucination.
"No, it takes something at least as large and solid and permanent as the Pillars to have any effect on orthodox conceptions. Casual visitations have no real effect."
Eisenberg let his thoughts simmer for some time before commenting further. When he did, it was half to himself. "I don't believe it. I won't believe it!"
"Believe what?"
"Your theory. Look, Doc — if you are right, don't you see what it means? We're helpless, we're outclassed."
"I don't think they will bother much with human beings. They haven't, up till now."
"But that isn't it. Don't you see? We've had some dignity as a race. We've striven and accomplished things. Even when we failed, we had the tragic satisfaction of knowing that we were, nevertheless, superior and more able than the other animals. We've had faith in the race — we would accomplish great things yet. But if we are just one of the lower animals ourselves, what does our great work amount to? Me, I couldn't go on pretending to be a 'scientist' if I thought I was just a fish, mucking around in the bottom of a pool. My work wouldn't signify anything."
"Maybe it doesn't."
"No, maybe it doesn't." Eisenberg got up and paced the constricted area of their prison. "Maybe not. But I won't surrender to it. I won't! Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. It doesn't seem to matter very much where the X people came from. One way or the other, they are a threat to our own kind. Doc, we've got to get out of here and warn them!"
"How?"
-
Graves was comatose a large part of the time before he died. Bill maintained an almost continuous watch over him, catching only occasional cat naps. There was little he could do for his friend, even though he did watch over him, but the spirit behind it was comfort to them both.
But he was dozing when Graves called his name. He woke at once, though the sound was a bare whisper. "Yes, Doc?"
"I can't talk much more, son. Thanks for taking care of me."
"Shucks, Doc."
"Don't forget what you're here for. Some day you'll get a break. Be ready for it and don't muff it. People have to be warned."
"I'll do it, Doc. I swear it."
"Good boy." And then, almost inaudibly, "G'night, son."
-
Eisenberg watched over the body until it was quite cold and had begun to stiffen. Then, exhausted by his long vigil and emotionally drained, he collapsed into a deep sleep.
When
he woke up the body was gone.
It was hard to maintain his morale, after Graves was gone. It was all very well to resolve to warn the rest of mankind at the first possible chance, but there was the endless monotony to contend with. He had not even the relief from boredom afforded the condemned prisoner — the checking off of limited days. Even his "calendar" was nothing but a counting of his sleeps.
He was not quite sane much of the time, and it was the twice-tragic insanity of intelligence, aware of its own instability. He cycled between periods of elation and periods of extreme depression, in which he would have destroyed himself, had he the means.
During the periods of elation he made great plans for fighting against the X creatures — after he escaped. He was not sure how or when, but, momentarily, he was sure. He would lead the crusade himself; rockets could withstand the dead zone of the Pillars and the cloud; atomic bombs could destroy the dynamic balance of the Pillars. They would harry them and hunt them down; the globe would once again be the kingdom of man, to whom it belonged.
During the bitter periods of relapse he would realize clearly that the puny engineering of mankind would be of no force against the powers and knowledge of the creatures who built the Pillars, who kidnapped himself and Graves in such a casual and mysterious a fashion. They were outclassed.
Could codfish plan a sortie against the city of Boston? Would it matter if the chattering monkeys in Guatemala passed a resolution to destroy the navy?
They were outclassed. The human race had reached its highest point — the point at which it began to be aware that it was not the highest race, and the knowledge was death to it, one way or the other — the mere knowledge alone, even as the knowledge was now destroying him, Bill Eisenberg, himself. Eisenberg — homo piscis. Poor fish!
His overstrained mind conceived a means by which he might possibly warn his fellow beings. He could not escape as long as his surroundings remained unchanged. That was established and he accepted it; he no longer paced his cage. But certain things did leave his cage: left-over food, refuse — and Graves' body. If he died, his own body would be removed, he felt sure. Some, at least, of the things which had gone up the Pillars had come down again — he knew that. Was it not likely that the X creatures disposed of any heavy mass for which they had no further use by dumping it down the Wahini Pillar? He convinced himself that it was so.
Very well, his body would be returned to the surface, eventually. How could he use it to give a message to his fellow men, if it were found? He had no writing materials, nothing but his own body.
But the same make-do means which served him as a calendar gave him a way to write a message. He could make welts on his skin with a shred of thumbnail. If the same spot were irritated over and over again, not permitted to heal, scar tissue would form. By such means he was able to create permanent tattooing.
The letters had to be large; he was limited in space to the fore part of his body; involved argument was impossible. He was limited to a fairly simple warning. If he had been quite right in his mind, perhaps be would have been able to devise a more cleverly worded warning — but then he was not.
In time, he had covered his chest and belly with cicatrix tattooing worthy of a bushman chief. He was thin by then and of an unhealthy color; the welts stood out plainly.
-
His body was found floating in the Pacific, by Portuguese fishermen who could not read the message, but who turned it in to the harbor police of Honolulu. They, in turn, photographed the body, fingerprinted it, and disposed of it. The fingerprints were checked in Washington, and William Eisenberg, scientist, fellow of many distinguished societies, and high type of homo sapiens, was officially dead for the second time, with a new mystery attached to his name.
The cumbersome course of official correspondence unwound itself and the record of his reappearance reached the desk of Captain Blake, at a port in the South Atlantic. Photographs of the body were attached to the record, along with a short official letter telling the captain that, in view of his connection with the case, it was being provided for his information and recommendation.
Captain Blake looked at the photographs for the dozenth time. The message told in scar tissue was plain enough: "BEWARE — CREATION TOOK EIGHT DAYS." But what did it mean?
Of one thing he was sure — Eisenberg had not had those scars on his body when he disappeared from the Mahan. The man had lived for a considerable period after he was grabbed up by the fireball — that was certain. And he had learned something. What? The reference to the first chapter of Genesis did not escape him; it was not such as to be useful.
He turned to his desk and resumed making a draft in painful longhand of his report to the bureau. "— the message in scar tissue adds to the mystery, rather than clarifying it. I am now forced to the opinion that the Pillars and the La-Grange fireballs are connected in some way. The patrol around the Pillars should not be relaxed. If new opportunities or methods for investigating the nature of the Pillars should develop, they should be pursued thoroughly. I regret to say that I have nothing of the sort to suggest —"
He got up from his desk and walked to a small aquarium supported by gimbals from the inboard bulkhead, and stirred up the two goldfish therein with a forefinger. Noticing the level of the water, he turned to the pantry door. "Johnson, you've filled this bowl too full again. Pat's trying to jump out again!"
"I'll fix it, captain." The steward came out of the pantry with a small pan. ("Don't know why the Old Man keeps these tarnation fish. He ain't interested in 'em — that's certain.") Aloud he added: "That Pat fish don't want to stay in there, captain. Always trying to jump out. And he don't like me, captain."
"What's that?" Captain Blake's thoughts had already left the fish; he was worrying over the mystery again.
"I say that fish don't like me, captain. Tries to bite my finger every time I clean out the bowl"
"Don't be silly, Johnson."
Project Nightmare
"Four's your point. Roll 'em!"
"Anybody want a side bet on double deuces?"
No one answered; the old soldier rattled dice in a glass, pitched them against the washroom wall. One turned up a deuce; the other spun. Somebody yelled, "It's going to five! Come, Phoebe!"
It stopped — a two. The old soldier said, "I told you not to play with me. Anybody want cigarette money?"
"Pick it up, Pop. We don't — oh, oh! 'Tenshun!"
In the door stood a civilian, a colonel, and a captain. The civilian said, "Give the money back, Two-Gun."
"Okay, Prof." The old soldier extracted two singles. "That much is mine."
"Stop!" objected the captain. "I'll impound that for evidence. Now, you men —"
The colonel stopped him. "Mick. Forget that you're adjutant. Private Andrews, come along." He went out; the others followed. They hurried through the enlisted men's club, out into desert sunshine and across the quadrangle.
The civilian said, "Two-Gun, what the deuce!"
"Shucks, Prof, I was just practicing."
"Why don't you practice against Grandma Wilkins?"
The soldier snorted. "Do I look silly?"
The colonel put in, "You're keeping a crowd of generals and V.I.P.s waiting. That isn't bright."
"Colonel Hammond, I was told to wait in the club."
"But not in its washroom. Step it up!"
They went inside headquarters to a hail where guards checked their passes before letting them in. A civilian was speaking: " — and that's the story of the history-making experiments at Duke University. Doctor Reynolds is back; he will conduct the demonstrations."
The officers sat down In the rear, Dr. Reynolds went to the speaker's table. Private Andrews sat down with a group set apart from the high brass and distinguished civilians of the audience. A character who looked like a professional gambler — and was — sat next to two beautiful redheads, identical twins. A fourteen-year-old Negro boy slumped in the next chair; he seemed asleep. Beyond him a most wideawa
ke person, Mrs. Anna Wilkins, tatted and looked around. In the second row were college students and a drab middle-aged man.
The table held a chuck-a-luck cage, packs of cards, scratch pads, a Geiger counter, a lead carrying case. Reynolds leaned on it and said, "Extra-Sensory Perception, or E.S.P., is a tag for little-known phenomena — telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition, telekinesis. They exist; we can measure them; we know that some people are thus gifted. But we don't know how they work. The British, in India during World War One, found that secrets were being stolen by telepathy." Seeing doubt in their faces Reynolds added, "It is conceivable that a spy five hundred miles away is now 'listening in' — and picking your brains of top-secret data."
Doubt was more evident. A four-star Air Force general said, "One moment, Doctor — if true, what can we do to stop it?"
"Nothing."
"That's no answer. A lead-lined room?"
"We've tried that, General. No effect."
"Jamming with high frequencies? Or whatever 'brain waves' are?"
"Possibly, though I doubt it. If E.S.P. becomes militarily important you may have to operate with all facts known. Back to our program: These ladies and gentlemen are powerfully gifted in telekinesis, the ability to control matter at a distance. Tomorrow's experiment may not succeed, but we hope to convince the doubting Thomases" — he smiled at a man in the rear — "that it is worth trying."
The man he looked at stood up. "General Hanby!"
An Army major general looked around. "Yes, Doctor Withers?"
"I asked to be excused. My desk is loaded with urgent work — and these games have nothing to do with me."
The commanding general started to assert himself; the four-star visitor put a hand on his sleeve. "Doctor Withers, my desk in Washington is piled high, 'but I sin here because the President sent me. Will you please stay? I want a skeptical check on my judgment."
Withers sat down, still angry. Reynolds continued: 'We will start with E.S.P. rather than telekinesis — which is a bit different, anyhow." He turned to one of the redheads. "Jane, will you come here?"