“But now,” said Nancy, “there can’t be war—not the kind of war the whole world feared.”
“No,” I said, “there can’t be any war.” But I couldn’t seem to feel too good about it. “We may have something now that’s worse than war.”
“There is nothing worse than war,” she said.
And that, of course, would be what everyone would say. Maybe they’d be right. But now the aliens would come into this world of ours and once we’d let them in we’d be entirely at their mercy. They had tricked us and we had nothing with which we could defend ourselves. Once here they could take over and supersede all plant life upon the Earth, without our knowing it, without our ever being able to find out. Once we let them in we never could be sure. And once they’d done that, then they’d own us. For all the animal life on Earth, including man, depended on the plants of Earth for their energy.
“What puzzles me,” I said, “is that they could have taken over, anyhow. If they’d had a little patience, if they had taken a little time, they could have taken over and we never would have known. For there are some of them right here, their roots in Millville ground. They needn’t have stayed as flowers. They could have been anything. In a hundred years they could have been every branch and leaf, every blade of grass…”
“Maybe there was a time factor of some sort,” said Nancy. “Maybe they couldn’t afford to wait.”
I shook my head. “They had lots of time. If they needed more, they could have made it.”
“Maybe they need the human race,” she said. “Perhaps we have something they want. A plant society couldn’t do a thing itself. They can’t move about and they haven’t any hands. They can store a lot of knowledge and they can think long thoughts—they can scheme and plan. But they can’t put any of that planning into execution. They would need a partner to carry out their plans.”
“They’ve had partners,” I reminded her. “They have a lot of partners even now. There are the people who made the time machine. There’s this funny little doctor and that big windbag of a Smith. The Flowers have all the partners they need. It must be something else.”
“These people that you mention,” she said, “may not be the right kind of people. Perhaps they searched world after world for the right kind of human beings. For the right kind of partner. Maybe that’s us.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “the others weren’t mean enough. They may be looking for a deadly race. And a deadly race, that’s us. Maybe they want someone who’ll go slashing into parallel world after parallel world, in a sort of frenzy; brutal, ruthless, terrible. For when you come right down to it, we are pretty terrible. They may figure that, working with us, there’s nothing that can stop them. Probably they are right. With all their accumulated knowledge and their mental powers, plus our understanding of physical concepts and our flair for technology, there probably is no limit to what the two of us could do.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “What’s the matter with you? I gained the impression to start with that you thought the Flowers might be all right.”
“They still may be,” I told her, “but they used so many tricks and I fell for all the tricks. They used me for a fall guy.”
“So that’s what bothers you.”
“I feel like a heel,” I said.
We sat quietly side by side upon the step. The street was silent and empty. During all the time we had sat there, no one had passed.
Nancy said, “It’s strange that anyone could submit himself to that alien doctor. He’s a creepy sort of being, and you can’t be sure…”
“There are a lot of people,” I told her, “who run most willingly to quackery.”
“But this isn’t quackery,” she said. “He did cure Doc and the rest of them. I didn’t mean he was a faker, but only that he’s horrid and repulsive.”
“Perhaps we appear the same to him.”
“There’s something else,” she said. “His technique is so different. No drugs, no instruments, no therapy. He just looks you over and probes into you with nothing, but you can see him probing, and then you’re whole again—not only well, but whole. And if he can do that to our bodies, what about our minds? Can he change our minds, can he re-orient our thoughts?”
“For some people in this village,” I told her, “that might be a good idea. Higgy, for example.”
She said, sharply, “Don’t joke about it, Brad.”
“All right,” I said. “I won’t.”
“You’re just talking that way to keep from being scared.”
“And you,” I said, “are talking seriously about it in an effort to reduce it to a commonplace.”
She nodded. “But it doesn’t help,” she said. “It isn’t commonplace.”
She stood up. “Take me home,” she said.
So I walked her home.
24
Twilight was falling when I walked downtown. I don’t know why I went there. Restlessness, I guess. The house was too big and empty (emptier than it had ever been before) and the neighborhood too quiet. There was no noise at all except for the occasional snatch of voices, either excited or pontifical, strained through the electronic media. There was not a house in the entire village, I was certain, that did not have a television set or a radio turned on.
But when I turned on the TV in the living room and settled back to watch, it did no more than make me nervous and uneasy.
A commentator, one of the better known ones, was holding forth with a calm and deep assurance.
“… no way of knowing whether this contraption which is circling the skies can really do the job which our Mr. Smith from the other world has announced to be its purpose. It has been picked up on a number of occasions by tracking stations which do not seem to be able, for one reason or another, to keep it in their range, and there have been instances, apparently verified, of visual sightings of it. But it is something about which it is difficult to get any solid news.
“Washington, it is understood, is taking the position that the word of an unknown being—unknown by either race or reputation—scarcely can be taken as undisputed fact. The capital tonight seems to be waiting for more word and until something of a solid nature can be deduced, it is unlikely there will be any sort of statement. That is the public position, of course; what is going on behind the scenes may be anybody’s guess. And the same situation applies fairly well to all other capitals throughout the entire world.
“But this is not the situation outside the governmental circles. Everywhere the news has touched off wild celebration. There are joyous, spontaneous marches breaking out in London, and in Moscow a shouting, happy mob has packed Red Square. The churches everywhere have been filled since the first news broke, people thronging there to utter prayers of thankfulness.
“In the people there is no doubt and not the slightest hesitation. The man in the street, here in the United States and in Britain and in France—in fact, throughout the world—has accepted this strange announcement at face value. It may be simply a matter of believing what one chooses to believe, or it may be for some other reason, but the fact remains that there has been a bewildering suspension of the disbelief which characterized mass reaction so short a time ago as this morning.
“There seems, in the popular mind, to be no consideration of all the other factors which may be involved. The news of the end of any possibility of nuclear war has drowned out all else. It serves to underline the quiet and terrible, perhaps subconscious, tension under which the world has lived…”
I shut off the television and prowled about the house, my footsteps echoing strangely in the darkening rooms.
It was well enough, I thought, for a smug, complacent commentator to sit in the bright-lit studio a thousand miles away and analyze these happenings in a measured and well-modulated manner. And it was well enough, perhaps, for people other than myself, even here in Millville, to sit and listen to him. But I couldn’t listen—I couldn’t stand to listen.
Guilt, I
asked myself? And it might be guilt, for I had been the one who’d brought the time machine to Earth and I had been the one who had taken Smith to meet the newsmen at the barrier. I had played the fool—the utter, perfect fool—and it seemed to me the entire world must know.
Or might it be the conviction that had been growing since I talked with Nancy that there was some hidden incident or fact—some minor motive or some small point of evidence—that I had failed to see, that we all had failed to grasp, and that if one could only put his finger on this single truth then all that had happened might become simpler of understanding and all that was about to happen might make some sort of sense?
I sought for it, for this hidden factor, for this joker in the deck, for the thing so small it had been overlooked and yet held within it a vast significance, and I did not find it.
I might be wrong, I thought. There might be no saving factor. We might be trapped and doomed and no way to get out.
I left the house and went down the street. There was no place I really wanted to go, but I had to walk, hoping that the freshness of the evening air, the very fact of walking might somehow clear my head.
A half a block away I caught the tapping sound. It appeared to be moving down the street toward me and in a little while I saw a bobbing halo of white that seemed to go with the steady tapping. I stopped and stared at it and it came bobbing closer and the tapping sound went on. And in another moment I saw that it was Mrs. Tyler with her snow-white hair and cane.
“Good evening, Mrs. Tyler,” I said as gently as I could, not to frighten her.
She stopped and twisted around to face me.
“It’s Bradshaw, isn’t it?” she asked. “I can’t see you well, but I recognize your voice.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “You’re out late, Mrs. Tyler.”
“I came to see you,” she said, “but I missed your house. I am so forgetful that I walked right past it. Then I remembered and I was coming back.”
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Why, they tell me that you’ve seen Tupper. Spent some time with him.”
“That’s true,” I said, sweating just a little, afraid of what might be coming next.
She moved a little closer, head tilted back, staring up at me.
“Is it true,” she asked, “that he has a good position?”
“Yes,” I said, “a very good position.”
“He holds the trust of his employers?”
“That is the impression that I gained. I would say he held a post of some importance.”
“He spoke of me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. “He asked after you. He said he’d meant to write, but he was too busy.”
“Poor boy,” she said, “he never was a hand to write. He was looking well?”
“Very well, indeed.”
“Foreign service, I understand,” she said. “Who would ever have thought he’d wind up in foreign service. To tell the truth, I often worried over him. But that was foolish, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.” I said. “He’s making out all right.”
“Did he say when he would be coming home?”
“Not for a time,” I told her. “It seems he’s very busy.”
“Well, then,” she said, quite cheerfully, “I won’t be looking for him. I can rest content. I won’t be having to go out every hour or so to see if he’s come back.”
She turned away and started down the street.
“Mrs. Tyler,” I said, “can’t I see you home? It’s getting dark and…”
“Oh, my, no,” she said. “There is no need of it. I won’t be afraid. Now that I know Tupper’s all right, I’ll never be afraid again.”
I stood and watched her go, the white halo of her head bobbing in the darkness, her cane tapping out the way as she moved down the long and twisting path of her world of fantasy.
And it was better that way, I knew, better that she could take harsh reality and twist it into something that was strange and beautiful.
I stood and watched until she turned the corner and the tapping of the cane grew dim, then I turned about and headed downtown.
In the shopping district the street lamps had turned on, but all the stores were dark and this, when one saw it, was a bit upsetting, for most of them stayed open until nine o’clock. But now even the Happy Hollow tavern and the movie house were closed.
The village hall was lighted and a small group of people loitered near the door. The clinic, I imagined, must be coming to a close. I wondered, looking at the hall, what Doc Fabian might think of all of this. His testy old medic’s soul, I knew, would surely stand aghast despite the fact he’d been the first to benefit.
I turned from looking at the hall, and plodded down the street, hands plunged deep into my trouser pockets, walking aimlessly and restlessly, not knowing what to do. On a night like this, I wondered, what was a man to do? Sit in his living room and watch the flickering rectangle of a television screen? Sit down with a bottle and methodically get drunk? Seek out a friend or neighbor for endless speculation and senseless conversation? Or find some place to huddle, waiting limply for what would happen next?
I came to an intersection and up the side street to my right I saw a splash of light that fell across the sidewalk from a lighted window. I looked at it, astonished, then realized that the light came from the window of the Tribune office, and that Joe Evans would be there, talking on the phone, perhaps, with someone from the Associated Press or the New York Times or one of the other papers that had been calling him for news. Joe was a busy man and I didn’t want to bother him, but perhaps he wouldn’t mind, I thought, if I dropped in for a minute.
He was busy on the phone, crouched above his desk, with the receiver pressed against his ear. The screen door clicked behind me and he looked up and saw me.
“Just a minute,” he said into the phone, holding the receiver out to me.
“Joe, what’s the matter?”
For something was the matter. His face wore a look of shock and his eyes were stiff and staring. Little beads of sweat trickled down his forehead and ran into his eyebrows.
“It’s Alf,” he said, lips moving stiffly.
“Alf,” I said into the phone, but I kept my eyes on Joe Evans’ face. He had the look of a man who had been hit on the head with something large and solid.
“Brad!” cried Alf. “Is that you, Brad?”
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. When your phone didn’t answer…”
“What’s the matter, Alf? Take it easy, Alf.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll try to take it easy. I’ll take it from the top.”
I didn’t like the sound of his voice. He was scared and he was trying not to be.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“I finally got to Elmore,” he told me. “The traffic’s something awful. You can’t imagine what the traffic is out here. They have military check points and…”
“But you finally got to Elmore. You told me you were going.”
“Yes, I finally got here. On the radio I heard about this delegation that came out to see you. The senator and the general and the rest of them, and when I got to Elmore I found that they were stopping at the Corn Belt hotel. Isn’t that the damndest name … ?
“But, anyhow, I figured that they should know more about what was going on down in Mississippi. I thought it might throw some light on the situation. So I went down to the hotel to see the senator—that is, to try to see him. It was a madhouse down there. There were great crowds of people and the police were trying to keep order, but they had their hands full. There were television cameras all over the place and newsmen and the radio people—well, anyhow, I never saw the senator. But I saw someone else. Saw him and recognized him from the pictures in the paper. The one called Davenport…”
“The biologist,” I said.
“Yes, that’s it. The scientist. I
got him cornered and I tried to explain I had to see the senator. He wasn’t too much help. I’m not even sure he was hearing what I was saying. He seemed to be upset and he was sweating like a mule and he was paper-white. I thought he might be sick and I asked him if he was, if there was anything I could do for him. Then he told me. I don’t think he meant to tell me. I think maybe he was sorry that he did after he had told me. But he was so full of anger it was spilling out of him and for the moment he didn’t care. The man was in anguish, I tell you. I never saw a man as upset as he was. He grabbed me by the lapels and he stuck his face up close to mine and he was so excited and he talked so fast that he spit all over me. He wouldn’t have done a thing like that for all the world; he’s not that sort of man…”
“Alf,” I pleaded. “Alf, get down to facts.”
“I forgot to tell you,” Alf said, “that the news had just broken about that flying saucer you brought back. The radio was full of it. About how it was spotting the nuclear concentrations. Well, I started to tell the scientist about why I had to see the senator, about the project down in Greenbriar. And that was when he began to talk, grabbing hold of me so I couldn’t get away. He said the news of the aliens’ one condition, that we disperse our nuclear capacity, was the worst thing that could have happened. He said the Pentagon is convinced the aliens are a threat and that they must be stopped…”
“Alf,” I said, suddenly weak, guessing what was coming.
“And he said they know they must be stopped before they control more territory and the only way to do it is an H-bomb right on top of Millville.”
He stopped, half out of breath.
I didn’t say a thing. I couldn’t say a word, I was too paralyzed. I was remembering how the general had looked when I’d talked with him that morning and the senator saying, “We have to trust you, boy. You hold us in your hands.”
“Brad,” Alf asked, anxiously, “are you there? Did you hear me?”