IX

When Stuart McConchie returned to the East Bay from his trip to the peninsula south of San Francisco he found that someone—no doubt a group of veterans living under the pier—had killed and eaten his horse, Edward Prince of Wales. All that remained was the skeleton, legs and head, a heap worthless to him or to anyone else. He stood by it, pondering. Well, it had been a costly trip. And he had arrived too late anyhow; the fanner, at a penny apiece, had already disposed of the electronic parts of his Soviet missile.

Mr. Handy would supply another horse, no doubt, but he had been fond of Edward Prince of Wales. And it was wrong to kill a horse for food because they were so vitally needed for other purposes; they were the mainstay of transportation, now that most of the wood had been consumed by the wood-burning cars and by people in cellars using it in the winter to keep warm, and horses were needed in the job of reconstruction—they were the main source of power, in the absence of electricity. The stupidity of killing Edward maddened him; it was, he thought, like barbarism, the thing they all feared. It was anarchy, and right in the middle of the city; right in downtown Oakland, in broad day. It was what he would expect the Red Chinese to do.

Now, on foot, he walked slowly toward San Pablo Avenue. The sun had begun to sink into the lavish, extensive sunset which they had become accustomed to seeing in the years since the Emergency. He scarcely noticed it. Maybe I ought to go into some other business, he said to himself. Small animal traps—it’s a living, but there’s no advancement possible in it. I mean, where can you rise to in a business like that?

The loss of his horse had depressed him; he gazed down at the broken, grass-infested sidewalk as he picked his way along, past the rubble which once had been factories. From a burrow in a vacant lot something with eager eyes noted his passing; something, he surmised gloomily, that ought to be hanging by its hind legs minus its skin.

This, he thought, explains why Hoppy might legitimately have imagined he was seeing the afterlife. These ruins, the smoky, flickering pallor of the sky ... the eager eyes still following him as the creature calculated whether it could safely attack him. Bending, he picked up a sharp hunk of concrete and chucked it at the burrow—a dense layer of organic and in-organic material packed tightly, glued in place by some sort of white slime. The creature had emulsified some of the debris lying around, had reformed it into a usable paste. Must be a brilliant animal, he thought. But he did not care. The world could do without the brilliant and deranged life forms exposed to the light of day in the past years.

I’ve evolved, too, he said, turning one last time to face the creature, in case it might scuttle after him from behind. My wits are much clearer than they formerly were; I’m a match for you any time, so give up.

Evidently the creature agreed; it did not even come forth from its burrow.

I’m evolved, he thought, but sentimental. For he genuinely missed the horse. Damn those criminal veterans, he said to himself. They probably swarmed all over Edward the moment we pushed off in the raft. I wish I could get out of town; I wish I could emigrate to the open country where there’s none of this brutal cruelty and hoodlumism. That’s what that psychiatrist did, after the Emergency. Stockstill got right out of the East Bay; I saw him go. He was smart. He did not try to return to his old rut, he did not merely pick up where he left off, as I did.

I mean, he thought, I’m no better off now than I was before the goddam Emergency; I sold TV sets then and now I sell electronic vermin traps. What is the difference? One’s as bad as the other. I’m going downhill, in fact.

To cheer himself he got out one of his remaining special deluxe Gold Label Andrew Gill cigarettes and lit up.

A whole day wasted, he realized, on this wild goose chase to the far side of the Bay. In two hours it would be dark and he would be going to sleep, down in the cat peltlined basement room which Mr. Hardy rented him for a dollar in silver a month. Of course, he could light his fat lamp; he could burn it for a little while, read a book or part of a book—most of his library consisted of merely sections of books, the remaining portions having been destroyed or lost. Or he could visit old Mr. and Mrs. Hardy and sit in on the evening transmission from the satellite.

After all, he had personally radioed a request to Dangerfield just the other day, from the transmitter out on the mudflats in West Richmond. He had asked for “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” an old-fashioned favorite which he remembered from his childhood. It was not known if Dangerfield had that tune on his miles of tapes, however, so perhaps he was waiting in vain.

As he walked along he sang to himself,

Oh I heard the news:

There’s good rockin’ tonight.

Oh I heard the news!

There’s good rockin’ tonight!

Tonight I’ll be a mighty fine man,

I’ll hold my baby as tight as I can

It brought tears to his eyes to remember one of the old songs, from the world the way it was. All gone now, he said to himself. Bluthgelded out of existence, as they say ... and what do we have instead, a rat that can play the noseflute, and not even that because the rat got run over.

There was another old favorite, the tune about the man who had the knife; he tried to recall how it had gone. Something about the shark having teeth or pretty teeth. It was too vague; he could not recollect it. His mother had played a record of it for him; a man, with a gravelly voice, had sung it and it was beautiful.

I’ll bet the rat couldn’t play that, he said to himself. Not in a million years. I mean, that’s practically sacred music. Out of our past, our sacred past that no brilliant animal and no funny person can share. The past belongs only to us genuine human beings. I wish (the idea stirred him) that I could do like Hoppy used to do; I wish I could go into a trance, but not see ahead like he did—I want to go back.

If Hoppy’s alive now, can he do that? Has he tried it? I wonder where he is, that preview; that’s what he was, a preview. The first phoce. I’ll bet he did escape with his life. He probably went over to the Chinese when they made that landing up north.

I’d go back, he decided, to that first time I met Jim Fergesson, when I was looking for a job and it was still tough for a Negro to find a job in which he met the public. That was the thing about Fergesson; he didn’t have any prejudice. I remember that day; I had a job selling aluminum pans door to door and then I got the job with the Britannica people but that was also door to door. My god, Stuart realized; my first genuine job was with Jim Fergesson, because you can’t count that door to door stuff.

While he was thinking about Jim Fergesson—who was now dead and gone all these years since the bomb fell—he arrived on San Pablo Avenue with its little shops open here and there, little shacks which sold everything from coat hangers to hay. One of them, not far off, was HARDY’S HOMEOSTATIC VERMIN TRAPS, and he headed in that direction.

As he entered, Mr. Hardy glanced up from his assembly table in the rear; he worked under the white light of an arc lamp, and all around him lay heaps of electronic parts which he had scavenged from every corner Of Northern California. Many had come from the ruins out in Livermore; Mr. Hardy had connections with State officials and they had permitted him to dig there in the restricted deposits.

In former times Dean Hardy had been an engineer for an AM radio station in downtown Oakland; he was a slender, quiet-spoken, elderly man who wore a green sweater and a necktie even now—and a tie was unique, in these times. His hair was gray and curly, and he reminded Stuart of a beardless Santa Claus: he had a droll, dour expression and a roguish sense of humor. Physically, he was small; he weighed only a hundred and twenty pounds. But he had a near-violent temper and Stuart respected him. Hardy was nearly sixty, and in many respects he had become a father-figure to Stuart. Stuart’s actual father, dead since the ‘70s, had been an insurance underwriter, also a quiet man who wore a tie and sweater, but he had not had Hardy’s ferocity, his outbursts; or if he had, Stuart had never witnessed them or had repressed the memory of them.

And, too, Dean Hardy resembled Jim Fergesson.

That more than any other factor had drawn Stuart to him, three years ago. He was conscious of it; he did not deny it or want to deny it. He missed Jim Fergesson and he was drawn to anyone who resembled him.

To Mr. Hardy he said, “They ate my horse.” He seated himself on a chair at the front of the shop.

At once Ella Hardy, his employer’s wife, appeared from the living quarters in the rear; she had been fixing dinner. “You left him?”

“Yes,” he admitted. She, a formidable woman, glared at him with accusing indignation. “I thought he was safe out on the City of Oakland public ferry pier; there’s an official there who—“

“It happens all the time,” Hardy said wearily. “The bastards. It must have been those war vets who hole up down there. Somebody ought to drop a cyanide bomb under that pier; they’re down there by the hundreds. What about the car? You had to leave it, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Stuart said.

Mrs. Hardy said caustically, “Edward was worth eighty five silver U.S. dollars. That’s a week’s profit gone.”

“I’ll pay it back,” Stuart said, rigidly.

“Forget it,” Hardy said. “We have more horses at our store out in Orinda. What about the parts from the rocket?”

“No luck,” Stuart said. “All gone when I got there. Except for this.” He held up a handful of transistors. “The farmer didn’t notice these; I picked them up for nothing. I don’t know if they’re any good, thought.” Carrying them over to the assembly table he laid them down. “Not much for an all-day trip.” He felt more glum than ever.

Without a word, Ella Hardy returned to the kitchen; the curtain closed after her.

“You want to have some dinner with us?” Hady said, shutting off his light and removing his glasses.

“I dunno,” Stuart said. “I feel strange. It upset me to come back and find Edward eaten.” He roamed about the shop. Our relationship, he thought, is different with animals now. It’s much closer; there isn’t the great gap between us and them that there was. “Over on the other side of the Bay I saw something I’ve never seen before,” he said. “A flying animal like a bat but not a bat. More like a weasel, very skinny and long, with a big head. They call them tommies because they’re always gliding up against windows and looking in, like peeping toms.”

Hardy said, “It’s a squirrel. I’ve seen them.” He leaned back in his chair, loosened his necktie. “They evolved from the squirrels in Golden Gate Park.” He yawned. “I once had a scheme for them ... they could be useful—in theory, at least—as message carriers. They can glide or fly or whatever they do for amounts up to a mile. But they’re too feral. I gave it up after catching one.” He held up his right hand. “Look at the scar, there on my thumb. That’s from a torn.”

“This man I talked to said they taste good. Like old-time chicken. They sell them at stalls in downtown San Francisco; you see old ladies selling them cooked for a quarter apiece, still hot, very fresh.”

“Don’t try one,” Hardy said. “Many of them are toxic. It has to do with their diet.”

“Hardy,” Stuart said suddenly, “I want to get out of the city and out into the country.”

His employer regarded him.

“It’s too brutal here,” Stuart said.

“It’s brutal everywhere.”

“Not so much if you get away from town, really far away, say fifty to a hundred miles.”

“But then it’s hard to make a living.”

“Do you sell any traps in the country?” Stuart asked.

“No,” Hardy said.

“Why not?”

“Vermin live in towns, where there’s ruins. You know that. Stuart, you’re a woolgatherer. The country is sterile; you’d miss the flow of ideas that you have here in the city. Nothing happens; they just farm and listen to the satellite. Anyhow, you’re apt to run into the old race prejudice against Negroes, out in the country; they’ve reverted to the old patterns.” Once more he put on his glasses, turned his arc light back on and resumed the assembling of the trap before him. “It’s one of the greatest myths that ever existed, the superiority of the country. I know you’d be back here in a week.”

“I’d like to take a line of traps say out around Napa,” Stuart persisted. “Maybe up to the St. Helena Valley. Maybe I could trade them for wine; they grow grapes up there, I understand, like they used to.”

“But it doesn’t taste the same,” Hardy said. “The ground is altered. The wine is—“ He gestured. “You’d have to taste it, I can’t tell you, but it’s really awful. Foul.”

They were both silent, then.

“They drink it, though,” Stuart said. “I’ve seen it here in town, brought in on those old wood-burning trucks.”

“Of course, because people will drink anything they can get their hands on now. So do you, so do I.” Mr. Hardy raised his head and regarded Stuart. “You know who has liquor? I mean the genuine thing; you can’t tell if it’s prewar that he’s dug up or new that he’s made.”

“Nobody in the Bay Area.”

Hardy said, “Andrew Gill, the tobacco expert.”

“I don’t believe it.” He sucked in his breath, fully alert, now.

“Oh, he doesn’t produce much of it. I’ve only seen one bottle, a fifth of brandy. I had one single drink from it.” Hardy smiled at him crookedly, his lips twitching. “You would have liked it.”

“How much does he want for it?” He tried to sound casual.

“More than you have to pay.”

“And—it tastes like the real thing? The pre-war?”

Hardy laughed and returned to his trap-assembling. “That’s right.”

I wonder what sort of a man Andrew Gill is, Stuart said to himself. Big, maybe, with a beard, a vest ... walking with a silver-headed cane; a giant of a man with wavy, snow-white hair, imported monocle—I can picture him. He probably drives a Jaguar, converted of course now to wood, but still a great, powerful Mark XVI Saloon.

Seeing the expression on Stuart’s face, Hardy leaned toward him. “I can tell you what else he sells.”

“English brier pipes?”

“Yes, that, too.” Hardy lowered his voice. “Girly photos. In artistic poses—you know.”

“Aw, Christ,” Stuart said, his imagination boggling; it was too much. “I don’t believe it.”

“God’s truth. Genuine pre-war girly calendars, from as far back as 1950. They’re worth a fortune, of course. I’ve heard of a thousand silver dollars changing hands over a 1962 Playboy calendar; that’s supposed to have happened somewhere back East, in Nevada, somewhere like that.” Now Hardy had become pensive; he gazed off into space, his vermin trap forgotten.

“Where I worked when the bomb fell,” Stuart said, “at Modern TV, we had a lot of girly calendars downstairs in the service department. They were all incinerated, naturally.” At least so he had always assumed.

Hardy nodded in a resigned way.

“Suppose a person were poking around in the ruins somewhere,” Stuart said. “And he came onto a entire warehouse full of girly calendars. Can you imagine that?” His mind raced. “How much could he get? Millions? He could trade them for real estate; he could acquire a whole county!”

“Right,” Hardy said, nodding.

“I mean, he’d be rich forever. They make a few in the Orient, in Japan, but they’re no good.”

“I’ve seen them,” Hardy agreed. “They’re crude. The knowledge of how to do it has declined, passed into oblivion; it’s an art that has died out. Maybe forever.”

“Don’t you think it’s partly because there aren’t the girls any more who look like that?” Stuart said. “Everybody’s scrawny now and have no teeth; the girls most of them now have burn-scars from radiation, and with no teeth what kind of a girly calendar does that make?”

Shrewdly, Hardy said, “I think the girls exist. I don’t know where; maybe in Sweden or Norway, maybe in out-of-the-way places like the Solomon Islands. I’m convinced of it from what people coming in by ship say. Not in the U.S. or Europe or Russia or China, any of the places that were hit—I agree with you there.”

“Could we find them?” Stuart said. “And go into the business?”

After considering for a little while Hardy said, “There’s no film. There’re no chemicals to process it. Most good cameras have been destroyed or have disappeared. There’s no way you could get your calendars printed in quantity. If you did print them—“

“But if someone could find a girl with no burns and good teeth, the way they had before the war—“

“I’ll tell you,” Hardy said, “what would be a good business. I’ve thought about it many times.” He faced Stuart meditatively. “Sewing machine needles. You could name your own price; you could have anything.”

Gesturing, Stuart got up and paced about the shop. “Listen, I’ve got my eye on the big time; I don’t want to mess around with selling any more—I’m fed up with it. I sold aluminum pots and pans and encyclopedias and TV sets and now these vermin traps. They’re good traps and people want them, but I just feel there must be something else for me.

Hardy grunted, frowning.

“I don’t mean to insult you,” Stuart said, “but I want to grow. I have to; you either grow or you go stale, you die on the vine. The war set me back years, it set us all back. I’m just where I was ten yeas ago, and that’s not good enough.”

Scratching his nose, Hardy said, “What did you have in mind?”

“Maybe I could find a mutant potato that would feed everybody in the world.”

“Just one potato?”

“I mean a type of potato. Maybe I could become a plant breeder, like Luther Burbank. There must be millions of freak plants growing around out in the country, like there’re all those freak animals and funny people here in the city.”

Hardy said, “Maybe you could locate an intelligent bean.”

“I’m not joking about this,” Stuart said quietly.

They faced each other, neither speaking.

“It’s a service to humanity,” Hardy said at last, “to make homeostatic vermin traps that destroy mutated cats and dogs and rats and squirrels. I think you’re acting infantile. Maybe your horse being eaten while you were over in South San Francisco—“

Entering the room, Ella Hardy said, “Dinner is ready, and I’d like to serve it while it’s hot. It’s baked cod-head and rice and it took me three hours standing in line down at Eastshore Freeway to get the cod-head.”

The two men rose to their feet. “You’ll eat with us?” Hardy asked Stuart.

At the thought of the baked fish head, Stuart’s mouth watered. He could not say no and he nodded, following after Mrs. Hardy toward the little combination living room and kitchen in the rear of the building. It had been a month since be had tasted fish; there were almost none left in the Bay any longer—most of the schools had been wiped out and had never returned. And those that were caught were often ,radioactive. But it did not matter; people had become able to eat them anyhow. People could eat almost anything; their lives depended on it.

The little Keller girl sat shivering on the examination table, and Doctor Stockstill, surveying her thin, pale body, thought of a joke which he had seen on television years ago, long before the war. A Spanish ventriloquist, speaking through a chicken ... the chicken had produced an egg.

“My son,” the chicken said, meaning the egg.

“Are you sure?” the ventriloquist asked. “It’s not your daughter?”

And the chicken, with dignity, answered, “I know my business.”

This child was Bonny Keller’s daughter, but, Doctor Stockstill thought, it isn’t George Keller’s daughter; I am certain of that ... I know my business. Who had Bonny been having an affair with, seven yeas ago? The child must have been conceived very close to the day the war began. But she had not been conceived before the bomb fell; that was clear. Perhaps it was on that very day, he ruminated. Just like Bonny, to rush out while the bomb was falling, while the world was coming to an end, to have a brief, frenzied spasm of love with someone, perhaps some man she did not even know, the first man she happened onto ... and now this.

The child smiled at him and he smiled back. Superficially, Edie Keller appeared normal; she did not seem to be a funny child. How he wished, God damn it, that he had an x-ray machine. Because—

He said aloud, “Tell me more about your brother.”

“Well,” Edie Keller said in her frail, soft voice, “I talk to my brother all the time and sometimes he answers but more often he’s asleep. He sleeps almost all the time.”

“Is he asleep now?”

For a moment the child was silent. “No, he’s awake.”

Rising to his feet and coming over to her, Doctor Stockstill said, “I want you to show me exactly where he is.”

The child pointed to her left side, low down; near, he thought, the appendix. The pain was there. That had brought the child in; Bonny and George had become worried. They knew about the brother, but they assumed him to be imaginary, a pretend playmate which kept their little daughter company. He himself had assumed so at first; the chart did not mention a brother, and yet Edie talked about him. Bill was exactly the same age as she. Born, Edie had informed the doctor, at the same time as she, of course.

“Why of course?” he had asked, as he began examining her—he had sent the parents into the other room because the child seemed reticent in front of them.

Edie had answered in her calm, solemn way, “Because he’s my twin brother. How else could he be inside me?” And, like the Spanish ventriloquist’s chicken, she spoke with authority, with confidence; she, too, knew her business.

In the years since the war Doctor Stockstill had examined many hundreds of funny people, many strange and exotic variants on the human life form which flourished now under a much more tolerant—although smokily veiled—sky. He could not be shocked. And yet, this—a child whose brother lived inside her body, down in the inguinal region. For seven years Bill Keller had dwelt inside there, and Doctor Stockstill, listening to the girl, believed her; he knew that it was possible. It was not the first case of this kind. If he had his x-ray machine he would be. able to see the tiny, wizened shape, probably no larger than a baby rabbit. In fact, with his hands he could feel the outline ... he touched her side, carefully noting the firm cyst-like sack within. The head in a normal position, the body entirely within the abdominal cavity, limbs and all. Someday the girl would die and they would open her body, perform an autopsy; they would find a little wrinkled male figure, perhaps with a snowy white beard and blind eyes ... her brother, still no larger than a baby rabbit.

Meanwhile, Bill slept mostly, but now and then he and his sister talked. What did Bill have to say? What possibly could he know?

To the question, Edie had an answer. “Well, he doesn’t know very much. He doesn’t see anything but he thinks. And I tell him what’s going on so he doesn’t miss out.”

“What are his interests?” Stockstill asked. He had completed his examination; with the meager instruments and tests available to him he could do no more. He had verified the child’s account and that was something, but he could not see the embryo or consider removing it; the latter was out of the question, desirable as it was.

Edie considered and said, “Well, he uh, likes to hear about food.”

“Food!” Stockstill said, fascinated.

“Yes. He doesn’t eat, you know. He likes me to tell him over and over again what I had for dinner, because he does get it after a while ... I think he does anyhow. Wouldn’t he have to, to liver

“Yes,” Stockstill agreed.

“He gets it from me,” Edie said as she put her blouse back on, buttoning it slowly. “And he wants to know what’s in it. He especially likes it if I have apples or oranges. And—he likes to hear stories. He always wants to hear about places. Far-away, especially, like New York. My mother tells me about New York so I told him; he wants to go there someday and see what it’s like.”

“But he can’t see.”

“I can, though,” Edie pointed out. “It’s almost as good.”

“You take good care of him, don’t you?” Stockstill said, deeply touched. To the girl, it was normal; she had lived like this all her life—she did not know of any other existence. There is nothing, he realized once more, which is “outside” nature; that is a logical impossibility. In a way there are no freaks, no abnormalities, except in the statistical sense. This is an unusual situation, but it’s not something to horrify us; actually it ought to make us happy. Life per se is good, and this is one form which life takes. There’s no special pain here, no cruelty of suffering. In fact there is solicitude and tenderness.

“I’m afraid,” the girl said suddenly, “that he might die someday.”

“I don’t think he will,” Stockstill said. “What’s more likely to happen is that he’ll get larger. And that might pose a problem; it might be hard for your body to accommodate him.”

“What would happen, then?” Edie regarded him with large, dark eyes. ‘Would he get born, then?”

“No,” Stockstill said. “He’s not located that way; he would have to be removed surgically. But—he wouldn’t live. The only way he can live is as he’s living now, inside you.” Parasitically, he thought, not saying the word aloud. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” he said, patting the child on the head. “If it ever does.”

“My mother and father don’t know,” Edie said.

“I realize that,” Stockstill said.

“I told them about him,” Edie said. “But—“ She laughed.

“Don’t worry. Just go on and do what you’d ordinarily do. It’ll all take care of itself.”

Edie said, “I’m glad I have a brother; he keeps me from being lonely. Even when he’s asleep I can feel him there, I know he’s there. It’s like having a baby inside me; I can’t wheel him around in a baby carriage or anything like that, or dress him, ‘but talking to him is a lot of fun. For instance, I get to tell him about Mildred.”

“Mildred!” He was puzzled.

“You know.” The child smiled at his ignorance. “The girl that keeps coming back to Philip. And spoils his life. We listen every night. The satellite.”

“Of course.” It was Dangerfield’s reading of the Maugham book. Eerie, Doctor Stockstill thought, this parasite swelling within her body, in unchanging moisture and darkness, fed by her blood, hearing from her in some unfathomable fashion a second-hand account of a famous novel ... it makes Bill Keller part of our culture. He leads his grotesque social existence, too. God knows what he makes of the story. Does he have fantasies about it, about our life? Does he dream about us?

Bending, Doctor Stockstill kissed the girl on her forehead. “Okay,” he said, leading her toward the door. “You can go, now. I’ll talk to your mother and father for a minute; there’re some very old genuine pre-war magazines out in the waiting room that you can read, if you’re careful with them.”

“And then we can go home and have dinner,” Edie said happily, opening the door to the waiting room. George and Bonny rose to their feet, their faces taut with anxiety.

“Come in,” Stockstill said to them. He shut the door after them. “No cancer,” he said, speaking to Bonny in particular, whom he knew so well. “It’s a growth, of course; no doubt of that. How large it may get I can’t say. But I’d say, don’t worry about it. Perhaps by the time it’s large enough to cause trouble our surgery will be advanced enough to deal with It.”

The Kellers sighed with relief; they trembled visibly.

“You could take her to the U.C. Hospital in San Francisco,” Stockstill said. “They are performing minor surgery there ... but frankly, if I were you I’d let it drop.” Much better for you not to know, he realized. It would be hard on you to have to face it ... especially you, Bonny. Because of the circumstances involving the conception; ft would be so easy to start feeling guilt. “She’s a healthy child and enjoys life,” he said. “Leave it at that. She’s had it since birth.”

“Has she?” Bonny said. “I didn’t realize. I guess I’m not a good mother; I’m so wrapped up in community activities—“

“Doctor Stockstill,” George Keller broke in, “let me ask you this. Is Edie a—special child?”

“’Special’?” Stockstill regarded him cautiously.

“I think you know what I mean.”

“You mean, is she a funny person?”

George blanched, but his intense, grim expression remained; he waited for an answer. Stockstill could see that; the man would not be put off by a few phrases.

Stockstill said, “I presume that’s what you mean. Why do you ask? Does she seem to be funny in some fashion? Does she look funny?”

“She doesn’t look funny,” Bonny said, in a flurry of concern; she held tightly onto her husband’s arm, clinging to him. “Christ, that’s obvious; she’s perfectly normal-looking. Go to hell, George. What’s the matter with you? How can you be morbid about your own child; are you bored or something, is that it?”

“There are funny people who don’t show it,” George Keller said. “After all, I see many children; I see all our children. I’ve developed an ability to tell. A hunch, which usually is proved correct. We’re required, we in the schools, as you know, to turn any funny children over to the State of California for special training. Now—“

“I’m going home,” Bonny said. She turned and walked to the door of the waiting room. “Good-bye, Doctor.”

Stockstill said, “Wait, Bonny.”

“I don’t like this conversation,” Bonny said. “It’s ill. You’re both ill. Doctor, if you intimate in any fashion that she’s funny I won’t ever speak to you again. Or you either, George. I mean it.”

After a pause, Stockstill said, “You’re wasting your words, Bonny. I am not intimating, because there’s nothing to intimate. She has a benign tumor in the abdominal cavity; that’s all.” He felt angry. He felt, in fact, the desire to confront her with the truth. She deserved it.

But, he thought, after she has felt guilt, after she’s blamed herself for going out and having an affair with some man and producing an abnormal birth, then she will turn her attention to Edie; she will hate her. She will take it out on the child. It always goes like that. The child is a reproach to the parents, in some dim fashion, for what they did back in the old days or in the first moments of the war when everyone ran ‘his own crazy way, did his private, personal harm as he realized what was happening. Some of us killed to stay alive, some of us just fled, some of us made fools out of ourselves ... Bonny went wild, no doubt; she let herself go. And she’s that same person now; she would do it again, perhaps has done it again. And she is perfectly aware of that.

Again he wondered who the father was.

Someday I am going to ask her point blank, he decided. Perhaps she doesn’t even know; it is all a blur to her, that time in our lives. Those horrible days. Or was it horrible for her? Maybe it was lovely; she could kick the traces, do what she wanted without fear because she believed, we all did, that none of us would survive.

Bonny made the most of it, he realized, as she always does; she makes the most out of life in every contingency. I wish I were the same ... he felt envious, as he watched her move from the room toward her child. The pretty, trim woman; she was as attractive now as she had been ten years ago—the damage, the impersonal change that had descended on them and their lives, did not seem to have touched her.

The grasshopper who fiddled. That was Bonny. In the darkness of the war, with its destruction, its infinite sporting of life forms, Bonny fiddled on, scraping out her tune of joy and enthusiasm and lack of care; she could not be persuaded, even by reality, to become reasonable. The lucky ones: people like Bonny, who are stronger than the forces of change and decay. That’s what she has eluded—the forces of decay which have set in. The roof fell on us, but not on Bonny.

He remembered a cartoon in _Punch_--

Interrupting his thoughts, Bonny said, “Doctor, have you met the new teacher, Hal Barnes?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. I saw him at a distance only.”

“You’d like him. He wants to play the cello, except of course he has no cello.” She laughed merrily, her eyes dancing with pure life. “Isn’t that pathetic?”

“Very,” he agreed.’

“Isn’t that all of us?” she said. “Our cellos are gone. And what does that leave? You tell me.”

“Christ,” Stockstill said, “I don’t know; I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

Bonny, laughing, said, “Oh, you’re so earnest.”

“She says that to me, too,” George Keller said, with a faint smile. “My wife sees mankind as a race of dungbeetles laboring away. Naturally, she does not include herself.”

“She shouldn’t,” Stockstill said. “I hope she never does.”

George glanced at him sourly, then shrugged.

She might change, Stockstill thought, if she understood about her daughter. That might do it. It would take something like that, some odd blow unprecedented and unanticipated. She might even kill herself; the joy, the vitality, might switch to its utter opposite.

“Kellers,” he said aloud, “introduce me to the new teacher one day soon. I’d like to meet an ex-cello player. Maybe we can make him something out of a washtub strung with baling wire. He could play it with—“

“With horsetail,” Bonny said practically. “The bow we can make; that part is easy. What we need is a big resonating chamber, to produce the low notes. I wonder if we can find an old cedar chest. That might do. It would have to be wood, certainly.”

George said, “A barrel, cut in half.”

They laughed at that; Edie Keller, joining them, laughed, too, although she had not heard what her father—or rather, Stockstill thought, her mother’s husband—had said.

“Maybe we can find something washed up on the beach,” George said. “I notice that a lot of wooden debris shows up, especially after storms. Wrecks of old Chinese ships, no doubt, from years ago.”

Cheerfully, they departed from Doctor Stockstill’s office; he stood watching them go, the little girl between them. The three of them, he thought. Or rather, the four, if the invisible but real presence within the girl was counted.

Deep in thought he shut the door.

It could be my child, he thought. But it isn’t, because seven years ago Bonny was up in West Marin here and I was at my office in Berkeley. But if I had been near her that day—

Who was up here then? he asked himself. When the bombs fell ... who of us could have been with her that day? He felt a peculiar feeling toward the man, whoever he was. I wonder how he would feel, Stockstill thought, if he knew about his child ... about his children. Maybe someday I’ll run into him. I can’t bring myself to tell Bonny, but perhaps I will tell him.

X

At the Foresters’ Hall, the people of West Marin sat discussing the illness of the man in the satellite. Agitated, they interrupted one another in their eagerness to speak. The reading from Of Human Bondage had begun, but no one in the room wanted to listen; they were all murmuring grim-faced, all of them alarmed, as June Raub was, to realize what would happen to them if the disc jockey were to die.

“He can’t really be that sick,” Cas Stone, the largest land-owner in West Marin, exclaimed. “I never told anybody this, but listen; I’ve got a really good doctor, a specialist in heart diseases, down in San Rafael. I’ll get him to a transmitter somewhere and he can tell Dangerfield what’s the matter with him. And he can cure him.”

“But he’s got no medicines up there,” old Mrs. Lully, the most ancient person in the community, said. “I heard him say once that his departed wife used them all up.”

“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 handles 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 floppy 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. Rab 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 floppy 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 stem 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, floppy’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 floppy, 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.

I wonder. Can he get out?

Edie Keller said to her brother, “What did you do to scare him like you did? He was really scared.”

From within her the familiar voice said, “I was someone he used to know, a long time ago. Someone dead.”

“Oh,” she said, “so that’s it. I thought it was something like that.” She was amused. “Are you going to do any more to him?”

“If I don’t like him,” Bill said, “I may do more to him, a lot of different things, maybe.”

“How did you know about the dead person?”

“Oh,” Bill said, “because-you know why. Because I’m dead, too.” He chuckled, deep down inside her stomach; she felt him quiver.

“No you’re not,” she said. “You’re as alive as I am, so don’t say that; it isn’t right.” It frightened her.

Bill said, “I was just pretending; I’m sorry. I wish I could have seen his face. How did it look?”

“Awful,” Edie said, “when you said that. It turned all inward, like a frog’s. But you wouldn’t know what a frog looks like either; you don’t know what anything looks like, so there’s no use trying to tell you.”

“I wish I could come out,” Bill said plaintively. “I wish I could be born like everybody else. Can’t I be born later on?”

“Doctor Stockstill said you couldn’t.”

“Then can’t he make it so I could be? I thought you said—“

“I was wrong,” Edie said. “I though he could cut a little round hole and that would do it, but he said no.”

Her brother, deep within her, was silent, then.

“Don’t feel bad,” Edie said. “I’ll keep on telling you how things are.” She wanted to console him; she said, “I’ll never do again like I did that time when I was mad at you, when I stopped telling you about what’s outside; I promise.”

“Maybe I could make Doctor Stockstill let me out,” Bill said.

“Can you do that? You can’t.”

“I can if I want.”

“No,” she said. “You’re lying; you can’t do anything but sleep and talk to the dead and maybe do imitations like you did. That isn’t much; I can practically do that myself, and a lot more.”

There was no response from within.

“Bill,” she said, “you know what? Well, now two people know about you—Hoppy Harrington does and Doctor Stockstill does. And you used to say nobody would ever find out about you, so you’re not so smart. I don’t think you’re very smart.”

Within her, Bill slept.

“If you did anything bad,” she said, “I could swallow something that would poison you. Isn’t that so? So you better behave.”

She felt more and more afraid of him; she was talking to herself, trying to bolster her confidence. Maybe it would be a good thing if you did die, she thought. Only then I’d have to carry you around still, and it—wouldn’t be pleasant; I wouldn’t like that.

She shuddered.

“Don’t worry about me,” Bill said suddenly. He had become awake again or maybe he had never been asleep at all; maybe he had just been pretending. “I know a lot of things; I can take care of myself. I’ll protect you, too. You better be glad about me because I can—well, you wouldn’t understand. You know I can look at everyone who’s dead, like the man I imitated. Well, there’re a whole lot of them, trillions and trillions of them and they’re all different. When I’m asleep I hear them muttering. They’re still all around.”

“Around where?” she asked.

“Underneath us,” Bill said. “Down in the ground.”

“Brrr,” she said.

Bill laughed. “It’s true. And we’re going to be there, too. And so is Mommy and Daddy and everybody else. Everybody and everything’s there, including animals. That dog’s almost there, that one that talks. Not there yet, maybe; but it’s the same. You’ll see.”

“I don’t want to see,” she said. “I want to listen to the reading; you be quiet so I can listen. Don’t you want to listen, too? You always say you like it.”

“He’ll be there soon, too,” Bill said. “The man who does the reading up in the satellite.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t believe that; are you sure?”

“Yes,” her brother said. “Pretty sure. And even before him—do you know who the ‘glasses man’ is? You don’t, but he’ll be there very soon, in just a few minutes. And then later on—“ He broke off. “I won’t say.”

“No,” she agreed. “Don’t say, please. I don’t want to hear.”

Guided by the tall, crooked mast of Hoppy’s transmitter, Eldon Blaine made his way toward the phocomelus’ house. It’s now or never, he realized. I have only a little time. No one stopped him; they were all at the Hall, including the phocomelus himself. I’ll get that radio and nap it, Eldon said to himself. If I can’t get him at least I can return to Bolinas with something. The transmitter was now close ahead; he felt the presence of Hoppy’s construction—and then all at once he was stumbling over something. He fell, floundered with his arms out. The remains of a fence, low to the ground.

Now he saw the house itself, or what remained of it. Foundations and one wall, and in the center a patched-together cube, a room made out of debris, protected from rain by tar paper. The mast, secured by heavy guy wires, rose directly behind a little metal chimney.

The transmitter was on.

He heard the hum even before be saw the gaseous blue light of its tubes. And from the crack under the door of the tar-paper cube more light streamed out. He found the knob, paused, and then quickly turned it; the door swung open with no resistance, almost as if something inside were expecting him.

A friendly, intimate voice murmured, and Eldon Blainé glanced around, chilled, expecting to see—incredibly—the phocomelus. But the voice came from a radio mounted on a work bench on which lay tools and meters and repair parts in utter disorder. Dangerfield, still speaking, even though the satellite surely had passed on. Contact with the satellite such as no one else had achieved, he realized. They even have that, up here in West Marin. But why was the big transmitter on? What was it doing? He began to look hastily around ... .

From the radio the low, intimate voice suddenly changed; it became harsher, sharper. “Glasses man,” it said, “what are you doing in my house?” It was the voice of Hoppy Harrington, and Eldon stood bewildered, rubbing his head numbly, trying to understand and knowing on a deep, instinctive level that he did not—and never really would.

“Hoppy,” he managed to say. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” the voice from the radio said. “I’m coming closer. Wait where you are, glasses man.” The door of the room opened and Hoppy Harrington, aboard his phocomobile, his eyes sharp and blazing, confronted Eldon. “Welcome to my home,” Hoppy said caustically, and his voice now issued from him and from the speaker of the radio both. “Did you think you had the satellite, there on that set?” One of his manual extensions reached out, and the radio was shut off. “Maybe you did, or maybe you will, someday. Well, glasses man, speak up. What do you want here?”

Eldon said, “Let me go. I don’t want anything; I was just looking around.”

“Do you want the radio, is that it?” Hoppy said in an expressionless voice. He seemed resigned, not surprised in the least.

Eldon said, “Why is your transmitter on?”

“Because I’m transmitting to the satellite.”

“If you’ll let me go,” Eldon said, “I’ll give you all the glasses I have. And they represent months of scavenging all over Northern California.”

“You don’t have any glasses this time,” the phocomelus said. “I don’t see your briefcase, anyhow. But you can go, though, as far as Fm concerned; you haven’t done anything wrong, here. I didn’t give you the chance,” He laughed in his brisk, stammering way.

Eldon said, “Are you going to try to bring down the satellite?”

The phocomelus stared at him.

“You are,” Eldon said. “With that transmitter you’re going to set off that final stage that never fired; you’ll make it act as a retro-rocket and then it’ll fall back into the atmosphere and eventually come down.”

“I couldn’t do that,” floppy said, finally. “Even if I wanted to.”

“You can affect things at a distance.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m doing, glasses man.” Wheeling his ‘mobile past Eldon, the phocomelus sent an extension thrusting out to pick up an object from his work bench. “Do you recognize this? It’s a reel of recording tape. It will be transmitted to the satellite at tremendously high speed, so that hours of information are conveyed in a few moments. And at the same time, all the messages which the satellite has been receiving during its transit will be broadcast down to me the same way, at ultra high speed This is how it was designed to work originally, glasses man. Before the Emergency, before the monitoring equipment down here was lost.”

Eldon Blaine looked at the radio on the work bench and then he stole a glance at the door. The phocomobile had moved so that the door was no longer blocked. He wondered if he could do it, if he had a chance.

“I can transmit to a distance of three hundred miles,” Hoppy was saying. “I could reach receivers up and down Northern California, but that’s all, by transmitting direct. But by sending my messages to the satellite to be recorded and then played back again and again as it moves on—“

“You can reach the entire world,” Eldon said.

“That’s right,” Hoppy said. “There’s the necessary machinery aboard; it’ll obey all sorts of instructions from the ground.”

“And then you’ll be Dangerfield,” Eldon said.

The phocomelus smiled and stammered, “And no one will know the difference. I can pull if off; I’ve got everything worked out. What’s the alternative. Silence. The satellite will fall silent any day, now. And then the one voice that unifies the world will be gone and the world will decay. I’m ready to cut Dangerfield off any moment, now. As soon as I’m positive that he’s really going to cease.”

“Does he know about you?”

“No,” Hoppy said.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Eldon said. “I think Dangerfield’s been dead for a long time, and it’s actually been you we’ve been listening to.” As he spoke he moved closer to the radio on the work bench.

“That’s not so,” the phocomelus said, in a steady voice. He went on, then, “But ft won’t be long, now. It’s amazing he’s survived such conditions; the military people did a good job in selecting him.”

Eldon Blaine swept up the radio in his arms and ran toward the door.

Astonished, the phocomelus gaped at him; Eldon saw the expression on Hoppy’s face and then be was outside, running through the darkness toward the parked police cart. I distracted him, Eldon said to himself. The poor damn phoce had no idea what I was going to do. All that talk—what did it mean? Nothing. Delusions of grandeur; he wants to sit down here and talk to the entire world, receive the entire world, make it his audience ... but no one can do that except Dangerfield; no one can work the machinery in the satellite from down here. The phoce would have to be inside it, up there, and it’s impossible to—

Something caught him by the back of the neck.

How? Eldon Blaine asked himself as he pitched face-forward, still clutching the radio. He’s back there in the house and I’m out here. Action at a distance ... he has hold of me. Was I wrong? Can he really reach out so far?

The thing that had hold of him by the neck squeezed.

XI

Picking up the first mimeographed sheet of the West Marin News & Views, the little twice-monthly newspaper which he put out, Paul Dietz scrutinized critically the lead item, which he had written himself.

BOLINAS MAN DIES OF BROKEN NECK

Four days ago Eldon Blaine, a glasses man from Bolinas, California, visiting this part of the country on business, was found by the side of the road with his neck broken and marks indicating violence by someone unknown. Earl Colvig, Chief of the West Marin Police, has begun an extensive investigation and is talking to various people who saw Blaine that night.

Such was the item in its entirety, and Diets, reading it, felt deep satisfaction; he had a good lead for this edition of his paper—a lot of people would be interested, and maybe for the next edition he could get a few more ads. His main source of income came from Andy Gill, who always advertised his tobacco and liquor, and from Fred Quinn, the pharmacist, and of course he had several classifieds. But it was not like the old days.

Of course the thing he had left Out of his item was the fact that the Boihias glasses man was in West Marin for no good purpose; everyone knew that. There had even been speculation that he had come to nap their handy. But since that was mere conjecture, it could not be printed.

He turned to the next item in terms of importance.

DANGERFIELD SAID TO BE AILING

Persons attending the nightly broadcasts from the satellite report that Walt Dangerfield declared the other day that he “was sick, possibly with an ulcerous or coronary condition,” and needed medical attention. Much concern was exhibited by the persons at the Foresters’ Hall, it was further reported. Mr. Cas Stone, who informed the News & Views of this, stated that as a last resort his personal specialist in San Rafael would be consulted, and it was discussed without a decision being reached that Fred Quinn, owner of the Point Reyes Pharmacy, might journey to Army Headquarters at Cheyenne to offer drugs for Dangerfield’s use.

The rest of the paper consisted of local items of lesser interest; who had dined with whom, who had visited what nearby town ... he glanced briefly at them, made sure that the ads were printed perfectly, and then began to run off further sheets.

And then, of course, there were items missing from the paper, items which could never be put into print. Hoppy Harrington terrified by seven-year-old child, for instance. Dietz chuckled, thinking of the reports he had received about the phoce’s fright, his fit right out in public. Mrs. Bonny Keller having another affair, this time with the new school teacher, Hal Barnes ... that would have made a swell item. Jack Tree, local sheep rancher, accuses unnamed persons (for the millionth time) of stealing his sheep. What else? Let’s see, he thought. Famous tobacco expert, Andrew Gill, visited by unknown city person, probably having to do with a merger of Gill’s tobacco and liquor business and some huge city syndicate as yet unknown. At that, he frowned. If Gill moved from the area, the News & Views would lose its most constant ad; that was not good at all.

Maybe I ought to print that, he thought. Stir up local feeling against Gill for whatever it is he’s doing. Foreign influences felt in local tobacco business ... I could phrase it that way. Outside persons of questionable origin seen in area. That sort of talk. It might dissuade Gill; after all, he’s a newcomer—he’s sensitive. He’s only been here since the Emergency. He’s not really one of us.

Who was this sinister figure seen talking to Gill? Everyone in town was curious. No one liked it. Some said he was a Negro; some thought it was radiation bums—a war-darky, as they were called.

Maybe what happened to that Bolinas glasses man will happen to him, Diets conjectured. Because there’s too many people here won’t don’t like outside foreign influences; it’s dangerous to come around here and meddle.

The Eldon Blaine killing reminded him, naturally, of the Austurias one ... although the latter had been done legally, out in the open, by the Citizens’ Council and Jury. Still, there was in essence little difference; both were legitimate expressions of the town’s sentiments. As would be the sudden disappearance from this world of the Negro or wardarky or whatever he was who now hung around Gill—and it was always possible that some retaliation might be taken out on Gill as well.

But Gill had powerful friends; for instance, the Kellers. And many people were dependent on his cigarettes and liquor; both Orion Stnoud and Gas Stone bought from him in huge quantity. So probably Gill was safe.

But not the darky, Dietz realized. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes. He’s from the city and he doesn’t realize the depth of feeling in a small community. We have integrity, here, and we don’t intend to see it violated.

Maybe he’ll have to learn the hard way. Maybe we’ll have to see one more killing. A darky-killing. And in some ways that’s the best kind.

Gliding down the center street of Point Reyes, Hoppy Harrington sat bolt-upright in the center of his ‘mobile as he saw a dark man familiar to him. It was a man he had known years ago, worked with at Modern TV Sales & Service; it looked like Stuart McConchie.

But then the phoce realized that it was another of Bill’s imitations.

He felt terror, to think of the power of the creature inside Edie Keller; it could do this, in broad daylight, and what did he himself have to counter it? As with the voice of Jim Fergesson the other night he had been taken in; it had fooled him, despite his own enormous abilities. I don’t know what to do, he said to himself frantically; he kept gliding on, toward the dark figure. It did not vanish.

Maybe, he thought, Bill knows I did that to the glasses man. Maybe he’s paying me back. Children do things like that.

Turning his cart down a side street he picked up speed, escaping from the vicinity of the imitation of Stuart McConchie.

“Hey,” a voice said warningly.

Glancing about, Hoppy discovered that he had almost run over Doctor Stockstill. Chagrined, he slowed his ‘mobile to a halt. “Sorry.” He eyed the doctor narrowly, then, thinking that here was a man he had known in the old days, before the Emergency; Stockstill had been a psychiatrist with an office in Berkeley, and Happy had seen him now and then along Shattuck Avenue. Why was he here? How had he happened to decide on West Marin, as Happy had? Was it only coincidence?

And then the phocomelus thought, Maybe Stockstill is a perpetual imitation, brought into existence the day the first bomb fell on the Bay Area; that was the day Bill was conceived, wasn’t it?

That Bonny Keller, he thought; it all emanates from her. All the trouble in the community ... the Austurias situation, which almost wrecked us, divided us into two hostile camps. She saw to it that Austurias was killed, and actually it should have been that degenerate, that Jack Tree up there with his sheep; he’s the one who should have been shot, not the former school teacher.

That was a good man, a kindly person, the phoce thought, thinking of Mr. Austurias. And hardly anyone—except me—supported him openly at his so-called trial.

To the phoce, Doctor Stockstill said tartly, “Be more careful with that ‘mobile of yours, Hoppy. As a personal favor to me.”

“I said I was sorry,” Hoppy answered.

What are you afraid of?” the doctor said.

“Nothing,” Hoppy said. “I’m afraid of nothing in the entire world.” And then he remembered the incident at the Foresters’ Hall, how he had behaved. And it was all over town; Doctor Stockstill knew about it even though he had not been present. “I have a phobia,” he admitted, on impulse. “Is that in your line, or have you given that up? It has to do with being trapped. I was trapped once in a basement, the day the first bomb fell. It saved my life, but—“ he shrugged.

Stockstill said, “I see.”

“Have you ever examined the little Keller girl?” Hoppy said.

“Yes,” Stockstill said.

With acuity, Happy said, “Then you know. There’s not just one child but two. They’re combined somehow; you probably know exactly how, but I don’t—and I don’t care. That’s a funny person, that child, or rather she and her brother; isn’t that so?” His bitterness spilled out. “They don’t look funny. So they get by. People just go on externals, don’t they? Haven’t you discovered that in your practice?”

Stockstill said, “By and large, yes.”

“I heard,” Happy said, “that according to State law, all funny minors, all children who are in any way funny, either feral or not, have to be turned aver to Sacramento, to the authorities.”

There was no response from the doctor; Stockstill eyed him silently.

“You’re aiding the Kellers in breaking the law,” Happy said.

After a pause, Stockstill said, “What do you want, Happy?” His voice was low and steady.

“N-nothing,” Hoppy stammered. “Just justice, I mean; I want to see the law obeyed. Is that wrong? I keep the law. I’m registered with the U.S. Eugenics Service as a—“ He choked on the word. “As a biological sport. That’s a dreadful thing to do, but I do it; I comply.”

“Hoppy,” the doctor said quietly, “what did you do to the glasses man from Bolinas?”

Spinning his ‘mobile, Happy glided swiftly off, leaving the doctor standing there.

What did I do to him, Happy thought. I killed him; you know that. Why do you ask? What do you care? The man was from outside this area; he didn’t count, and we all know that. And June Raub says he wanted to nap me, and that’s good enough for most people—it’s good enough for Earl Colvig and Onion Stroud and Cas Stone, and they run this community, along with Mrs. Tallman and the Kellers and June Raub.

He knows I killed Blaine, he realized. He knows a lot about me, even though I’ve never let him examine me physically; he knows I can perform action at a distance ... but everyone knows that. Yet, perhaps he’s the only one who understands what it signifies. He’s an educated man.

If I see that imitation of Stuart McConchie, he thought suddenly, I will reach out and squeeze it to death. I have to.

But I hope I don’t see it again, he thought. I can’t stand the dead; my phobia is about that, the grave: I was buried down in the grave with the part of Fergesson that was not disintegrated, and it was awful. For two weeks, with half of a man who had consideration for me, more so than anyone else I ever knew. What would you say, Stockstill, if you had me on your analyst’s couch? Would that sort of traumatic incident interest you, or have there been too many like it in the last seven years?

That Bill-thing with Edie Keller lives somehow with the dead, Happy said to himself. Half in our world, half in the other. He laughed bitterly, thinking of the time he had imagined that he himself could contact the other world. it was quite a joke on me, he thought. I foaled myself more than anybody else. And they never knew. Stuart McConchie and the rat, Stuart sitting there munching with relish ...

And then he understood. That meant that Stuart survived; he had not been killed in the Emergency, at least not at first, as Fergesson had. So this perhaps was not an imitation that he had seen just now.

Trembling, he halted his ‘mobile and sat rapidly thinking.

Does he know anything about me? he asked himself. Can he get me into any trouble? No, he decided, because in those days—what was I? Just a helpless creature on a Government-built cart who was glad of any job he could find, any scrap tossed to him. A lot has changed. Now I am vital to the entire West Marin area, he told himself; I am a top-notch handy.

Rolling back the way he had come he emerged once more on the main street and searched about for Stuart McConchie. Sure enough, there he was, heading in the direction of Andrew Gill’s tobacco and liquor factory. The phoce started to wheel after him, and then an idea came to him.

He caused McConchie to stumble.

Seated within his ‘mobile he grinned to himself as he saw the Negro trip, half-fall, then regain his footing. McConchie peered down at the pavement, scowling. Then he continued on, more slowly now, picking his way over the broken cement and around the tufts of weeds with care.

The phoce wheeled after him and when he was a pace or so behind he said, “Stuart McConcbie, the TV salesman who eats raw rats.”

As if struck the Negro tottered. He did not turn; he simply stood, his arms extended, fingers apart.

“How are you enjoying the afterlife?” Hoppy said.

After a moment the Negro said in a hoarse voice, “Fine.” He turned, now. “So you got by.” He looked the phoce and his mobile up and down.

“Yes,” the phoce said, “I did. And not by eating rats.”

“I suppose you’re the handy here,” Stuart said.

“Yes,” Hoppy said. “No-hands Handy Hoppy; that’s me. What are you doing?”

“I’m—in the homeostatic vermin trap business,” Stuart said.

The phoce giggled.

“Is that so goddam funny?” Stuart said.

“No,” the phoce said. “Sorry. I’m glad you survived. Who else did? That psychiatrist across from Modern—he’s here. Stockstill. Fergesson was killed.”

They both were silent then.

“Lightheiser was killed,” Stuart said. “So was Bob Rubenstein. So were Connie the waitress and Tony; you remember them.”

“Yes,” the phoce said, nodding.

“Did you know Mr. Crody, the jeweler?”

“No,” the phoce said, “afraid not.”

“He was maimed. Lost both arms and was blinded. But he’s alive in a Government hospital in Hayward.”

“Why are you up here?” the phoce said.

“On business.”

“Did you come to steal Andrew Gill’s formula for his special deluxe Gold Label cigarette?” Again the phoce giggled, but he thought, It’s true. Everyone who comes sneaking up here from outside has a plan to murder or steal; look at Eldon Blaine the glasses man, and he came from Bolinas, a much closer place.

Stuart said woodenly, “My business compels me to travel; I get all around Northern California.” After a pause he added. “That was especially true when I had Edward Prince of Wales. Now I have a second-rate horse to pull my car, and it takes a lot longer to get somewhere.”

“Listen,” Hoppy said, “don’t tell anyone you know me from before, because if you do I’ll get very upset; do you understand? I’ve been a vital part of this community for many years and I don’t want anything to come along and change it. Maybe I can help you with your business and then you can leave. How about that?”

“Okay,” Stuart said. “I’ll leave as soon as I can.” He studied the phoce with such intensity that Happy felt himself squirm with self-consciousness. “So you found a place for yourself,” Stuart said. “Good for you.”

Happy said, “I’ll introduce you to Gill; that’s what I’ll do for you. I’m a good friend of his, naturally.”

Nodding, Stuart said, “Fine. I’d appreciate that.”

“And don’t you do anything, you hear?” The phoce heard his voice rise shrilly; he could not control it. “Don’t you nap or do any other crime, or terrible things will happen to you—understand?”

The Negro nodded somberly. But he did not appear to be frightened; he did not cringe, and the phoce felt more and more apprehensive. I wish you would go, the phoce thought to himself. Get out of here don’t make trouble for me. I wish I didn’t know you; I wish I didn’t know anyone from outside, from before the Emergency. I don’t want even to think about that.

“I hid in the sidewalk,” Stuart said suddenly. “When the first big bomb fell. I got down through the grating; it was a real good shelter.”

“Why do you bring up that?” the phoce squealed.

“I don’t know. I thought you’d be interested.”

“I’m not,” the phoce squealed; he clapped his manual extensors over his ears. “I don’t want to hear or think any more about those times.”

“Well,” Stuart said, plucking meditatively at his lower lip, “then let’s go see this Andrew Gill.”

“If you knew what I could do to you,” the phoce said, “you’d be afraid. I can do—“ He broke off; he had been about to mention Eldon Blaine the glasses man. “I can move things,” he said. “From a long way off. It’s a form of magic; I’m a magician!”

Stuart said, “That’s not magic.” He voice was toneless. “We call that freak-tapping.” He smiled.

“N-no,” Happy stammered. “What’s that mean? ‘Freaktapping,’ I never heard that word. Like table-tapping?”

“Yes, but with freaks. With funny people.”

He’s not afraid of me, Hoppy realized. It’s because he knew me in the old days when I wasn’t anything. It was hopeless; the Negro was too stupid to understand that everything had changed—he was almost as he had been before, seven years ago, when Happy had last seen him. He was inert, like a rock.

Hoppy thought of the satellite, then. “You wait,” he said breathlessly to Stuart. “Pretty soon even you city people will know about me; everyone in the world will, just like they do around here. It won’t be long now; I’m almost ready!”

Grinning tolerantly, Stuart said, “First impress me by introducing me to the tobacco man.”

“You know what I could do?” Happy said. “I could whisk Andrew Gill’s formula right out of his safe or wherever he keeps it and plunk it down in your hands. What do you say to that?” He laughed.

“Just let me meet him,” Stuart repeated. “That’s all I want; I’m not interested in his tobacco-formula.” He looked weary.

Trembling with anxiety and rage, the phoce turned his ‘mobile in the direction of Andrew Gill’s little factory and led the way.

Andrew Gill glanced up from his task of rolling cigarettes to see Hoppy Harrington—whom he did not like—entering the factory with a Negro—whom he did not know. At once Gill felt uneasy. He set down his tobacco paper and rose to his feet. Beside him at the long bench the other rollers, his employees, continued at their work.

He employed, in all, eight men, and this was in the tobacco division alone. The distillery, which produced brandy, employed another twelve men, but they were north, in Sonoma County. They were not local people. His was the largest commercial enterprise in West Marin, not counting the farming interests such as Orion Stroud or Jack Tree’s sheep ranch, and he sold his products all over Northern California; his cigarettes traveled, in slow stages, from one town to another and a few, he understood, had even gotten back to the East Coast and were known there.

“Yes?” he said to Hoppy. He placed himself in front of the phoce’s cart, halting him at a distance from the work-area. Once, this had been the town’s bakery; being made of cement, it had survived the bomb blasts and made an ideal place for him. And of course he paid his employees almost nothing; they were glad to have jobs at any salary.

Hoppy stammered, “This m-man came up from Berkeley to see you, Mr. Gill; he’s an important businessman, he says. Isn’t that right?” The phoce turned toward the Negro. “That’s what you said to me, isn’t it?”

Holding out his hand, the Negro said to Gill, “I represent the Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap Corporation of Berkeley, California. I’m here to acquaint you with an amazing proposition that could well mean tripling your profits with six months.” His dark eyes blazed.

There was silence.

Gill repressed the impulse to laugh aloud. “I see,” he said, nodding and putting his hands in his pockets; he assumed a serious stance. “Very interesting, Mr.—“ He glanced questioningly at the Negro.

“Stuart McConchie,” the Negro said.

They shook hands.

“My employer, Mr. Hardy,” Stuart said, “has empowered me to describe to you in detail the design of a fully automated cigarette-making machine. We at Hardy Homeostatic are well aware that your cigarettes are rolled entirely in the old-fashioned way, by hand.” He pointed toward the employees working in the rear of the factory. “Such a method is a hundred years out of date, Mr. Gill. You’ve achieved superb quality in your special deluxe Cold Label cigarettes—“

“Which I intend to maintain,” Gill said quietly.

Mr. McConchie said, “Our automated electronic equipment will in no way sacrifice quality for quantity. In fact—“

“Wait,” Gill said. “I don’t want to discuss this now.” He glanced toward the phoce, who was parked close by, listening. The phoce flushed and at once spun his ‘mobile away.

“I’m going,” Hoppy said. “This doesn’t interest me; goodbye.” He wheeled through the open door of the factory, out onto the street. The two of them watched him go until he disappeared.

“Our handy,” Gill said.

McConchie started to speak, then changed his mind, cleared his throat and strolled a few steps away, surveying the factory and the men at their work. “Nice place you have here, Gill. I want to state right now how much I admire your product; it’s first in its field, no doubt of that.”

I haven’t heard talk like that, Gill realized, in seven years. It was difficult to believe that it still existed in the world; so much had changed and yet here, in this man McConchie, it remained intact. Gill felt a glow of pleasure. It reminded him of happier times, this salesman’s line of chatter. He felt amiably inclined toward the man.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. Perhaps the world, at last, was really beginning to regain some of its old forms, its civilities and customs and preoccupations, all that had gone into it to make it what it was. This, he thought, this talk by McConchie; it’s authentic. It’s a survival, not a simulation; this man has somehow managed to preserve his viewpoint, his enthusiasm, through all that has happened—he is still planning, cogitating, bullshitting ... nothing can or will stop him.

He is, Gill realized, simply a goad salesman. He has not let even a hydrogen war and the collapse of society dissuade him.

“How about a cup of coffee?” Gill said. “I’ll take a break far ten or fifteen minutes and you can tell me more about this automated machine or whatever it is.”

“Real coffee?” McConchie said, and the pleasant, optimistic mask slid for an instant from his face; he gaped at Gill with naked, eager hunger.

“Sorry,” Gill said. “It’s a substitute, but not bad; I Think you’ll like it. Better than what’s sold in the city at those so-called ‘coffee’ stands.” He went to get the pot of water.

“Quite a place you have here,” McConchie said, as they waited for the coffee to heat. “Very impressive and industrious.”

“Thank you,” Gill said.

“Coming here is a long-time dream fulfilled,” McConchie went on. “It took me a week to make the trip and I’d been thinking about it ever since I smoked my first special deluxe Gold Label. It’s—“ He groped for words to express his thought. “An island of civilization in these barbaric times.”

Gill said, “What do you think of the country, as such? A small town like this, compared to life in the city ... it’s very different.”

“I just got here,” McConchie said. “I came straight to you; I didn’t take time to explore. My horse needed a new right front shoe and I left him at the first stable as you cross the little metal bridge.”

“Oh yes,” Gill said. “That belongs to Stroud; I know where you mean. His blacksmith’ll do a good job.”

McConchie said, “Life seems much more peaceful here. In the city if you leave your horse—well, a while ago I left my horse to go across the Bay and when I got back someone had eaten it, and it’s things like that that make you disgusted with the city and want to move on.”

“I know,” Gill said, nodding in agreement. “It’s brutal in the city because there’re still so many homeless and destitute people.”

“I really loved that horse,” McConchie said, looking doleful.

“Well,” Gill said, “in the country you’re faced constantly with the death of animals; that’s always been one of the basic unpleasant verities of rural life. When the bombs fell, thousands of animals up here were horribly injured; sheep and cattle ... but that can’t compare of course to the injury to human life down where you come from. You must have seen a good deal of human misery, since E Day.”

The Negro nodded. “That and the sporting. The freaks both as regards animals and people. Now Happy—“

“Hoppy isn’t originally from this area,” Gill said. “He showed up here after the war in response to our advertising for a handyman. I’m not from here, either; I was traveling through the day the bomb fell, and I elected to remain.”

The coffee being ready, the two of them began to drink. Neither man spoke for a time.

“What sort of vermin trap does your company make?” Gill asked, presently.

“It’s not a passive type,” McConchie said. “Being homeostatic, that is, self-instructing, it follows for instance a rat—or a cat or dog—dawn into the network of burrows such as now underlie Berkeley ... it pursues one rat after another, killing one and going on to the next—until it runs out of fuel or by chance a rat manages to destroy it. There are a few brilliant rats—you know, mutations that are higher on the evolutionary scale—that know how to lame a Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap. But not many can.”

“Impressive,” Gill murmured.

“Now, our proposed cigarette-rolling machine—“

“My friend,” Gill said, “I like you but—here’s the problem. I don’t have any money to buy your machine and I don’t have anything to trade you. And I don’t intend to let anyone enter my business as a partner. So what does that leave?” He smiled. “I have to continue as I am.”

“Wait,” McCancbie said instantly. “There must be a solution. Maybe we. could lease you a Hardy cigarette-rolling machine in exchange for x-number of cigarettes, your special deluxe Gold Label variety, of course, delivered each week for x-number of weeks.” His face glowed with animation. “The Hardy Corporation for instance could became sole licensed distributors of your cigarette; we could represent you everywhere, develop a systematic network of outlets up and down Northern California instead of the haphazard system you now appear to employ, What do you say to that?”

“Hmmmm,” Gill said. “I must admit it does sound interesting. I admit that distribution has not been my cup of tea ... I’ve thought off and on for several years about the need of getting an organization going, especially with my factory being located in a rural spot, as it is. I’ve even thought about moving into the city, but the napping and vandalism is too great there. And I don’t want to move back to the city; this is my home, here.”

He did not say anything about Bonny Keller. That was his real reason for remaining in West Marin; his affair with her had ended years ago but he was more in love with her now than ever. He had watched her go from man to man, becoming more dissatisfied with each of them, and Gill believed in his own heart that someday he would get her back. And Bonny was the mother of his daughter; he was well aware that Edie Keller was his child.

“You’re sure,” he said suddenly, “that you didn’t come up here to steal the formula for my cigarettes?”

McConchie laughed.

“You laugh,” Gill said, “but you don’t answer.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” the Negro said. “We’re in the business of making electronic machines, not cigarettes.” But, it seemed to Gill, he had an evasive look on his face, and his voice was too full of confidence, too nonchalant. All at once Gill felt uneasy.

Or is it the rural mentality? he asked himself. The isolation getting the better of me; suspicion of all newcomers ... of anything strange.

I had better be careful, though, he decided. I must not get carried away just because this man recalls for me the good old pre-war days. I must inspect this machine with great suspicion. After all, I could have gotten Hoppy to design and build such a machine; he seems quite capable in that direction. I could have done all these things proposed to me entirely by myself.

Perhaps I am lonely, he thought. That might be it; I am lonely for city people and their manner of thought. The country gets me down—Point Reyes with its News & Views filled up with mediocre gossip, and mimeographed!

“Since you’re just up from the city,” he said aloud, “I might as well ask you—is there any interesting national or international news, of late, that I might not have heard? We do get the satellite, but I’m frankly tired of disc jockey talk and music. And those endless readings.”

They both laughed. “I know what you mean,” McConchie said, sipping his coffee and nodding. “Well, let’s see. I understand that an attempt is being made to produce an automobile again, somewhere around the ruins of Detroit. It’s mostly made of plywood but it does run on kerosene.”

“I don’t know where they’re going to get the kerosene,” Gill said. “Before they build a car they better get a few refineries operating again. And repair a few major roads.”

“Oh, something else. The Government plans to reopen one of the routes across the Rockies sometime this year. For the first time since the war.”

“That’s great news,” Gill said, pleased. “I didn’t know that.”

“And the telephone companies—“

“Wait,” Gill said, rising. “How about a little brandy in your coffee? How long has it been since you’ve had a coffee royal?”

“Years,” Stuart McConchie said.

“This is Gill’s Five Star. My own. From the Sonoma Valley.” He poured from the squat bottle into McConchie’s cup.

“Here’s something else that might interest you.” McConchie reached into his coat pocket and brought out something flat and folded. He opened it up, spread it out, and Gill saw an envelope.

“What is it?” Picking it up, Gill examined it without seeing anything unusual. An ordinary envelope with an address, a cancelled stamp ... and then he understood, and he could scarcely credit his senses. Mail service. A letter from New York.

“That’s right,” McConchie said. “Delivered to my boss, Mr. Hardy. All the way from the East Coast; it only took four weeks. The Government in Cheyenne, the military people; they’re responsible. It’s done partly by blimp, partly by truck, partly by horse. The last stage is on foot,”

“Good lord,” Gill said. And he poured some Gill’s Five Star into his coffee, too.

XII

“It was Hoppy who killed the glasses man from Bolinas,” Bill said to his sister. “And he plans to kill someone later on, too, and then I can’t tell but after that it’s something more like that, again.”

His sister had been playing Rock, Scissors, Paper with three other children; now she stopped, jumped to her feet and quickly ran to the edge of the school grounds, where she would be alone and could talk to Bill. “How do you know that?” she asked, excited.

“Because I talked to Mr. Blaine,” Bill said. “He’s down below now, and there’s others coming. I’d like to come out and hurt Hoppy; Mr. Blaine says I should. Ask Doctor Stockstill again if I can’t be born.” Her brother’s voice was plaintive. “If I could be born even for just a little while—“

“Maybe I could hurt him,” Edie said thoughtfully. “Ask Mr. Blaine what I ought to do. I’m sort of afraid of Hoppy.”

“I could do imitations that would kill him,” Bill said, “if I only could get out. I have some swell ones. You should hear Hoppy’s father; I do that real good. Want to hear?” In a low, grown-up man’s voice he said, “I see where Kennedy proposes another one of those tax cuts of his. If he thinks he can fix up the economy that way he’s crazier than I think he is, and that’s damn crazy.”

“Do me,” Edie said. “Imitate me.”

“How can I?” Bill said. “You’re not dead yet.”

Edie said, “What’s it like to be dead? I’m going to be someday so I want to know.”

“It’s funny. You’re down in a hole looking up. And you’re all flat like—well, like you’re empty. And, you know what? Then after a while you come back. You blow away and where you get blown away to is back again! Did you know that? I mean, back where you are right now. All fat and alive.”

“No,” Edie said. “I didn’t know that.” She felt bored; she wanted to hear more about how Hoppy had killed Mr. Blaine. After a point the dead people down below weren’t very interesting because they never did anything, they just waited around. Some of them, like Mr. Blaine, thought all the time about killing and others just mooned like vegetables—Bill had told her many times because he was so interested. He thought it mattered.

Bill said, “Listen, Edie, let’s try the animal experiment again; okay? You catch some little animal and hold it against your belly and I’ll try again and see if I can get outside and in it. Okay?”

“We tried it,” she said practically.

“Let’s try again! Get something real small. What are those things that—you know. Have shells and make slime.”

“Slugs.”

“No.”

“Snails.”

“Yes, that’s it. Get a snail and put it as close to me as you can. Get it right up to my head where it can hear me and I can hear it back. Will you do that?” Ominously, Bill said, “If you don’t, I’m going to go to sleep for a whole year.” He was silent, then.

“Go to sleep, then,” Edie said. “I don’t care. I have a lot of other people to talk to and you don’t.”

“I’ll die, then, and you won’t be able to stand that, because then you’ll have to carry a dead thing around forever inside you, or—I tell you what I’ll do; I know what I’ll do. If you don’t get an animal and hold it up near me I’ll grow big and pretty soon I’ll be so big that you’ll pop like an old—you know.”

“Bag,” Edie said.

“Yes. And that way I’ll get out.”

“You’ll get out,” she agreed, “but you’ll just roll around and die yourself; you won’t be able to live.”

“I hate you,” Bill said.

“I hate you more,” Edie said. “I hated you first, a long time ago when I first found out about you.”

“All right for you,” Bill said morosely. “See if I care. I’m rubber and you’re glue.”

Edie said nothing; she walked back to the girls and entered once more the game of Rock, Scissors, Paper. It was much more interesting than anything her brother had to say; he knew so little, did nothing, saw nothing, down there inside her.

But it was interesting, that part about Hoppy squeezing Mr. Blaine’s neck. She wondered who Hoppy was going to squeeze next, and if she should tell her mother or the policeman Mr. Colvig.

Bill spoke up suddenly. “Can I play, too?”

Glancing about, Edie made sure that none of the other girls had heard him. “Can my brother play?” she asked.

“You don’t have any brother,” Wilma Stone said, with contempt.

“He’s made-up,” Rose Quinn reminded her. “So it’s okay if he plays.” To Edie she said, “He can play.”

“One, two, three,” the girls said, each extending then one hand with all fingers, none or two displayed.

“Bill goes scissors,” Edie said. “So he beats you, Wilma, because scissors cuts paper, and you get to hit him, Rose, because rock crushes scissors, and he’s tied with me.”

“How do I hit him?” Rose said.

Pondering, Edie said, “Hit me very lightly here.” She indicated her side, just above the belt of her skirt. “Just with the side of your hand, and be careful because he’s delicate.”

Rose, with care, rapped her there. Within her Bill said, “Okay, I’ll get her back the next time.”

Across the playground came Edie’s father, the principal of the school, and with him walked Mr. Barnes, the new teacher. They paused briefly by the three girls, smiling.

“Bill’s playing, too,” Edie said to her father. “He just got hit.”

George Keller laughed. To Mr. Barnes he said, “That’s what comes of being imaginary; you always get hit.”

“How’s Bill going to hit me?” Wilma said apprehensively; she drew away and glanced up at the principal and teacher. “He’s going to hit me,” she explained. “Don’t do it hard,” she said, speaking in the general direction of Edie. “Okay?”

“He can’t hit hard,” Edie said, “even when he wants to.” Across from her Wilma gave a little jump. “See?” Edie said. “That’s all he can do, even when he tries as bard as he can.”

“He didn’t hit me,” Wilma said. “He just scared me. He doesn’t have very good aim.”

“That’s because he can’t see,” Edie said. “Maybe I better hit you for him; that’s more fair.” She leaned forward and swiftly rapped Wilma on the wrist. “Now let’s do it again. One, two, three.”

“Why can’t he see, Edie?” Mr. Barnes asked.

“Because,” she said, “he has no eyes.”

To her father, Mr. Barnes said, “Well, it’s a reasonable enough answer.” They both laughed and then strolled on.

Inside Edie her brother said, “If you got a snail I could be it for a while and I could maybe crawl around and see. Snails can see, can’t they? You told me once they have eyes on sticks.”

“Stalks,” Edie corrected.

“Please,” Bill said.

She thought, I know what I’ll do; I’ll hold a worm against me, and when he gets into it he’ll be just like he is—a worm can’t see or do anything but dig, and won’t he be surprised.

“All right,” she said, again springing up. “I’ll get an animal and do that. Wait a minute until I find one; I have to find it first so be patient.”

“Gee, thanks a lot,” Bill said, in a voice laden with nervousness and yearning. “I’ll do something back for you; on my word of honor.”

“What can you do for me?” Edie said, searching about in the grass at the edge of the school yard for a worm; she had seen many of them, since the rains of the previous night. “What can a thing like you do for anybody?” She searched avidly, stirring the grass with eager, swift fingers.

Her brother did not answer; she felt his mute sorrow and to herself she snickered.

“Looking for something you lost?” a man’s voice said from above her. She peeped up; it was Mr. Barnes, standing there smiling down.

“I’m looking for a worm,” she said shyly.

“What an unsqueamish girl,” he said.

“Who are you talking to?” Bill said, in confusion. “Who’s that?”

“Mr. Barnes,” she said, explaining.

“Yes?” Mr. Barnes said.

“I was talking to my brother, not you,” Edie said. “He asked who it was. He’s the new teacher,” she explained to Bill.

Bill said, “I see; I understand him, he’s close so I can get him. He knows Mama.”

“Our Mama?” Edie said, surprised.

“Yes,” Bill said, in a puzzled voice. “I don’t understand but he knows her and he sees her, all the time, when nobody is looking. He and she—“ He broke off. “It’s awful and bad. It’s—“ He choked. “I can’t say it.”

Edie stared at her teacher open-mouthed.

“There,” Bill said hopefully. “Didn’t I do something back for you? I told you something secret you never would have known. Isn’t that something?”

“Yes,” Edie said slowly, nodding in a daze. “I guess so.”

To Bonny, Hal Barnes said, “I saw your daughter today. And I got the distinct impression that she knows about us.”

“Oh Christ, how could she?” Bonny said. “It’s impossible.” She reached out and turned up the fat-lamp. The living room assumed a much more substantial quality as the chairs and a table and pictures became visible. “And anyhow it doesn’t matter; she wouldn’t care.”

To himself, Barnes thought, But she could tell George.

Thinking about Bonny’s husband made him peer past the window shade and out onto the moonlit road. No one stirred; the road was deserted and only foliage, rolling hillsides and the flat farm land below, were to be seen. A peaceful, pastoral sight, he thought. George, being the principal of the school, was at the PTA meeting and would not be home for several hours. Edie, of course, was in bed; it was eight o’clock.

And Bill he thought. Where is Bill, as Edie calls him? Roaming about the house, somewhere, spying on us? He felt uncomfortable and he moved away from the woman beside him on the couch.

“What’s the matter?” Bonny said alertly. “Hear something?”

“No. But—“ He gestured.

Bonny reached out, took hold of him and drew him down to her. “My god, you’re cowardly. Didn’t the war teach you anything about life?”

“It taught me,” he said, “to value my existence and not to throw it away; it taught me to play it safe.”

Groaning, Bonny sat up; she rearranged her clothes, buttoned her blouse back up. What a contrast this man was to. Andrew Gill, who always made love to her right out in the open, in broad daylight, along the oak-lined roads of West Marin, where anyone and anything might go past. He had seized her each time as he had the first time—yanking her into it, not gabbling or quaking or mumbling ... maybe I ought to go back to him, she thought.

Maybe, she thought, I ought to leave them all, Barnes and George and that nutty daughter of mine; I ought to go live with Gill openly, defy the community and be happy for a change.

“Well, if we’re not going to make love,” she said, “then let’s go down to the Foresters’ Hall and listen to the satellite.”

“Are you serious?” Barnes said.

“Of course.” She went to the closet to get her coat.

“Then all you want,” he said slowly, “is to make love; that’s all you care about in a relationship.”

“What do you care about? Talking?”

He looked at her in a melancholy way, but be did not answer.

“You fruit,” she said, shaking her head. “You poor fruit. Why did you come to West Marin in the first place? Just to teach little kids and stroll around picking mushrooms?” She was overcome with disgust.

“My experience today on the playground—“ Barnes began.

“You had no experience,” she interrupted. “It was just your goddam guilty conscience catching up with you. Let’s go; I want to hear Dangerfield. At least when he talks it’s fun to listen.” She put on her coat, walked quickly to the front door and opened it.

“Will Edie be all right?” Barnes asked as they started down the path.

“Sure,” she said, unable at the moment to care. Let her burn up, she said to herself. Gloomily, she plodded down the road, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets; Barnes trailed along behind her, trying to keep up with her strides.

Ahead of them two figures appeared, turning the corner and emerging into sight; she stopped, stricken, thinking one of them was George. And then she saw that the shorter, heavier man was Jack Tree and the other—she strained to see, still walking as if nothing were wrong. It was Doctor Stockstill.

“Come on,” she said over her shoulder, calmly, to Barnes. He came, then, hesitantly, wanting to turn back, to run. “Hi,” she called to Stockstill and Bluthgeld; or rather Jack Tree—she had to remember to keep calling him that. “What’s this, psychoanalysis out in the dark at night? Does that make it more effective? I’m not surprised to learn it.”

Gasping, Tree said in his hoarse, grating voice, “Bonny, I saw him again. It’s the Negro who understood about me that day when the war began, when I was going into Stockstill’s office, Remember, you sent me?”

Jokingly, Stockstill said, “They all look alike, as the saying goes. And anyhow—“

“No, it’s the same man,” Tree said. “He’s followed me here. Do you know what this means?” He looked from Bonny to Stockstill to Barnes, his eyes rubbery and enlarged, terror-stricken. “This means that it’s going to start again.”

“What’s going to start again?” Bonny said.

“The war,” Tree said to her. “Because that’s why it began last time; the Negro saw me and understood what I had done, he knew who I was and he still does. As soon as he sees me-“ He broke off, wheezing and coughing in his agony. “Pardon me,” he murmured.

To Stockstill, Bonny said, “There’s a Negro here; he’s right. I saw him. Evidently he came to talk to Gill about selling his cigarettes.”

“It couldn’t be the same person,” Stockstill said. He and she went off to one side slightly, talking now between themselves.

“Certainly it could,” Bonny said. “But that doesn’t matter because that’s one of his delusions. I’ve heard biin gabble about it countless times. Some Negro was sweeping the sidewalk and saw him go into your office, and that day the war began so he’s got them connected in his mind. And now he’ll probably completely deteriorate, don’t you think?” She felt resigned; she had been expecting this to happen, eventually. “And so the period,” she said, “of stable maladjustment is drawing to a close.” Perhaps, she thought, for us all. Just plain all of us. We could not have gone on like this forever, Bluthgeld with his sheep, me with George ... she sighed. “What do you think?”

Stockstill said, “I wish I had some Stelazine, but Stelazine ceased to exist on E Day. That would help him. I can’t. I’ve given that up; you know that, Bonny.” He sounded resigned, too.

“He’ll tell everyone,” she said, watching Bluthgeld, who stood repeating to Barnes what he had just told her and Stockstill. “They’ll know who he is, and they will kill him, as he fears; he’s right.”

“I can’t stop him,” Stockstill said mildly.

“You don’t particularly care,” she said.

He shrugged.

Going back to Bluthgeld, Bonny said, “Listen, Jack, let’s all go to Gill’s and see this Negro and I’ll bet he didn’t notice you that day. Do you want to bet? I’ll bet you twenty-five silver cents.”

“Why do you say you caused the war?” Barnes was saying to Bluthgeld. He turned to Bonny with a puzzled expression. “What is this, a war psychosis? And he says the war’s coming back.” Once more to Bluthgeld he said, “It isn’t possible for it to happen again; I can give you fifty reasons. First of all, there’re no hydrogen weapons left. Second—“

Putting her hand on Barnes’ shoulder, Bonny said, “Be quiet.” She said to Bruno Bluthgeld, “Let’s go down, all of us, together, and listen to the satellite. Okay?”

Bluthgeld muttered, “What is the satellite?”

“Good lord,” Barnes said. “He doesn’t know what you’re talking about. He’s mentally ill.” To Stockstill he said, “Listen, Doctor, isn’t schizophrenia where a person loses track of their culture and its values? Well, this man has lost track; listen to him.”

“I hear him,” Stockstill said in a remote voice.

Bonny said to him, “Doctor, Jack Tree is very dear to me. He has been in the past very much like a father to me. For God’s sake, do something for him. I can’t stand to see him like this; I just can’t stand it.”

Spreading his hands helplessly, Stockstill said, “Bonny, you think like a child. You think anything can be obtained if you just want it badly enough. That’s magical thinking. I can’t help—Jack Tree.” He turned away and walked off a few steps, toward town. “Come on,” he said to them over his shoulder. “We’ll do as Mrs. Keller suggests; we’ll go sit in the Hall and listen for twenty minutes to the satellite and then we’ll all feel a good deal better.”

Once more Barnes was talking with great earnestness to Jack Tree. Let me point out where the error in your logic lies. You saw a particular man, a Negro, on Emergency Day. Okay. Now, seven years later—“

“Shut up,” Bonny said to him, digging her fingers into his arm. “For God’s sake—“ She walked on, then, catching up with Doctor Stockstill. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I know this is the last of him; he won’t survive past this, seeing that Negro again.”

Tears filled her eyes; she felt tears dropping, escaping her. “Goddam,” she said bitterly, walking as fast as possible, ahead of the others, in the direction of town and the Foresters’ Hall. Not even to know about the satellite. To be that cut off, that deteriorated ... I didn’t realize. How can I stand it? How can a thing like this be? And once he was brilliant. A man who talked over TV and wrote articles, taught and debated ...

Behind her, Bluthgeld was mumbling, “I know it’s the same man, Stockstill, because when I ran into him on the street—I was buying feed at the feed store—he gave me that same queer look, as if he was about to jeer at me, but then he knew if he jeered I’d make it all happen again, and this time he was afraid. He saw it once before and he knows. Isn’t that a fact, Stockstill? He would know now. Am I correct?”

“I doubt if he knows you’re alive,” Stockstill said.

“But I’d have to be alive,” Bluthgeld answered. “Or the world—“ His voice became a blur and Bonny missed the rest; she heard only the sound of her own heels striking the weedy remains of pavement beneath her feet.

And the rest of us, we’re all just as insane, she said to herself. My kid with her imaginary brother, Hoppy moving pennies at a distance and doing imitations of Dangerfield, Andrew Gill rolling one cigarette after another by hand, year after year ... only death can get us out of this and maybe not even death. Maybe it’s too late; we’ll carry this deterioration with us to the next life.

We’d have been better off, she thought, if we’d all died on E Day; we wouldn’t have lived to see the freaks and the funnies and the radiation-darkies and the brilliant animals—the people who began the war weren’t thorough enough. I’m tired and I want to rest; I want to get out of this and go lie down somewhere, off where it’s dark and no one speaks. Forever.

And then she thought, more practically, Maybe what’s the matter with me is simply that I haven’t found the right man yet. And it isn’t too late; I’m still young and I’m not fat, and as everyone says, I’ve got perfect teeth. It could still happen, and I must keep watching.

Ahead lay the Foresters’ Hall, the old-fashioned white wooden building with its windows boarded up—the glass had never been replaced and never would be. Maybe Dangerfield, if he hasn’t died of a bleeding ulcer yet, ‘could run a classified ad for me, she conjectured. How would that go over with this community, I wonder? Or I could advertise in News & Views, let the worn-out drunk Paul Dietz run a little notice on my behalf for the next six months or so.

Opening the door of the Foresters’ Hall she heard the friendly, familiar voice of Walt Dangerfield in his recorded reading; she saw the rows of faces, the people listening, some with anxiety, some with relaxed pleasure ... she saw, seated inconspicuously in the corner, two men, Andrew Gill and with him a slender, good-looking young Negro. It was the man who had caved in the roof of Bruno Bluthgeld’s fragile structure of maladaptation, and Bonny stood there in the doorway not knowing what to do.

Behind her came Barnes and Stockstill and with them Bruno; the three men started past her, Stockstill and Barnes automatically searching for empty seats in the crowded hail. Bruno, who had never shown up before to hear the satellite, stood in confusion, as if he did not comprehend what the people were doing, as if he could make nothing out of the words emanating from the small battery-powered radio.

Puzzled, Bruno stood beside Bonny, rubbing his forehead and surveying the people in the room; he glanced at her questioningly, with a numbed look, and then he started to follow Barnes and Stockstill. And then he saw the Negro. He stopped. He turned back toward her, and now the expression on his face had changed; she saw there the eroding, dreadful suspicion—the conviction that he understood the meaning of all that he saw.

“Bonny,” he mumbled, “you have to get him out of here.”

“I can’t,” she said, simply.

“If you don’t get him out of here,” Bruno said, “I’ll make the bombs fall again.”

She stared at him and then she heard herself say in a brittle, dry voice, “Will you? Is that what you want to do, Bruno?”

“I have to,” he mumbled in his toneless way, staring at her sightlessly; he was completely preoccupied with his own thoughts, the various changes taking place within him. “I’m sorry, but first I’ll make the high-altitude test bombs go off again; that’s how I started before, and if that doesn’t do it then I’ll bring them down here, they’ll fall on everyone. Please forgive me, Bonny, but my God, I have to protect myself.” He tried to smile, but his toothless mouth did not respond beyond a distorted quiver.

Bonny said, “Can you really do that, Bruno? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. And he was sure; he had always been sure of his power. He had brought the war once and he could do it again if they pushed him too far: in his eyes she saw no doubt, no hesitation.

“That’s an awful lot of power for one man to have,” she said to him. “Isn’t that strange, that one man would have so much?”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s all the power in the world rolled together; I am the center. God willed it to be that way.”

“What a mistake God made,” she said.

Bruno gazed at her bleakly. “You, too,” he said. “I thought you never would turn against me, Bonny.”

She said nothing; she went to an empty chair and seated herself. She paid no more attention to Bruno. She could not; she had worn herself out, over the years, and now she had nothing left to give him.

Stockstill, seated not far away, leaned toward her and said, “The Negro is here in the room, you know.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I know.” Seated bolt-upright, she concentrated on the words coming from the radio; she listened to Dangerfield and tried to forget everyone and everything around her.

It’s out of my hands now, she said to herself. Whatever he does, whatever becomes of him, it’s not my fault. Whatever happens—to all of us. I can’t take any more responsibility; it’s gone on too long, as it is, and I am glad, at last, to get out from under it.

What a relief, she thought. Thank God.

Now it must begin again, Bruno Bluthgeld thought to himself. The war. Because there is no choice; it is forced on me. I am sorry for the people. All of them will have to suffer, but perhaps out of it they will be redeemed. Perhaps in the long run it is a good thing.

He seated himself, folded his hands, shut his eyes and concentrated on the task of assembling his powers. Grow, he said to them, the forces at his command everywhere in the world. Join and become potent, as you were in former times. There is need for you again, all ye agencies.

The voice issuing from the loudspeaker of the radio, however, disturbed him and made it difficult for him to concentrate. Breaking off, he thought, I must not be distracted; that is contrary to the Plan. Who is this that’s talking? They are all listening ... are they getting their instructions from him, is that it?

To the man seated beside him he said, “Who is this we’re listening to?”

The man, elderly, turned irritably to regard him. “Why, it’s Walt Dangerfield,” he said, in tones of utter disbelief.

“I have never heard of him,” Bruno said. Because he bad not wanted to hear of him. “Where is he talking from?”

“The satellite,” the elderly man said witheringly, and resumed his listening.

I remember now, Bruno said to himself. That’s why we came here; to listen to the satellite. To the man speaking from overhead.

Be destroyed, he thought in the direction of the sky above. Cease, because you are deliberately tormenting me, impeding my work. Bruno waited, but the voice went on.

“Why doesn’t he stop?” he asked the man on the other side of him. “How can he continue?”

The man, a little taken aback, said, “You mean his illness? He recorded this a long time ago, before he was sick.”

“Sick,” Bruno echoed. “I see.” He had made the man in the satellite sick, and that was something, but not enough. It was a beginning. Be dead, he thought toward the sky and the satellite above. The voice, however, continued uninterrupted.

Do you have a screen of defense erected against me? Bruno wondered. Have they provided you with it? I will crush it; obviously you have been long prepared to withstand attack, but it will do you no real good.

Let there be a hydrogen instrument, he said to himself. Let it explode near enough to this man’s satellite to demolish his ability to resist. Then have him die in complete awareness of who it is that he is up against. Bruno Bluthgeld concentrated, gripping his hands together, squeezing out the power from deep inside his mind.

And yet the reading continued.

You are very strong, Bruno acknowledged. He had to admire the man. In fact, he smiled a little, thinking about it. Let a whole series of hydrogen instruments explode now, he willed. Let his satellite be bounced around; let him discover the truth.

The voice from the loudspeaker ceased.

Well, it is high time, Bruno said to himself. And he let up on his concentration of powers; he sighed, crossed his legs, smoothed his hair, glanced at the man to his left.

“It’s over,” Bruno observed.

“Yeah,” the man said. “Well, now he’ll give the news—if he feels well enough.”

Astonished, Bruno said, “But he’s dead now.”

The man, startled, protested, “He can’t be dead; I don’t believe it. Go on—you’re nuts.”

“It’s true,” Bruno said. “His satellite has been totally destroyed and there is nothing remaining.” Didn’t the man know that? Hadn’t it penetrated to the world, yet?

“Doggone it,” the man said, “I don’t know who you are or why you say something like that, but you sure are a gloomy gus. Wait a second and you’ll hear him; I’ll even bet you five U.S. Government metal cents.”

The radio was silent. In the room, people stirred, murmured with concern and apprehension.

Yes, it has begun, Bruno said to himself. First, high altitude detonations, as before. And, soon—for all of you here. The world itself wiped out, as before, to halt the steady advance of cruelty and revenge; it must be halted before too late. He glanced in the direction of the Negro and smiled. The Negro pretended not to see him; he pretended to be involved in discussion with the man beside him.

You are aware, Bruno thought. I can tell; you can’t fool me. You, more than anyone else, know what is beginning to happen.

Something is wrong, Doctor Stockstill thought. Why doesn’t Walt Dangerfield go on? Has he suffered an embolism or something on that order?

And then he noticed the crooked grin of triumph on Bruno Bluthgeld’s toothless face. At once Stockstill thought, He’s taking credit for it, in his own mind. Paranoid delusions of omnipotence; everything that takes place is due to him. Repelled, he turned away, moved his chair so that he could no longer see Bluthgeld.

Now he turned his attention on the young Negro. Yes, he thought, that could well be the Negro television salesman who used to open up the TV store across from my office in Berkeley, years ago. I think I’ll go over and ask him.

Rising, he made his way over to Andrew Gill and the Negro. “Pardon me,” he said, bending over them. “Did you ever live in Berkeley and sell TV sets on Shattuck Avenue?”

The Negro said, “Doctor Stockstill.” He held out his hand and they shook. “It’s a small world,” the Negro said.

“What’s happened to Dangerfield?” Andrew Gill said worriedly. Now June Raub appeared by the radio, fiddling with the knobs; other people began to collect around her, offering advice and murmuring with one another in small, grave clusters. “I think this is the end. What do you say, Doctor?”

“I say,” Stockstill said, “that if it is it’s a tragedy.”

In the rear of the room, Bruno Bluthgeld rose to his feet and said in a loud, husky voice, “The demolition of existence has begun. Everyone present will be spared by special consideration long enough to confess sins and repent if it is sincere.”

The room fell silent. The people, one by one, turned in his direction.

“You have a preacher, here?” the Negro said to Stockstill.

To Gill, Stockstill said rapidly, “He’s sick, Andy. We’ve got to get him out of here. Give me a hand.”

“Sure,” Gill said, following him; they walked toward Bluthgeld, who was still on his feet.

“The high-altitude bombs which I set off in 1972,” Bluthgeld was declaring, “find reinforcement in the present act, sanctioned by God Himself in His wisdom for the world. See the Book of Revelations for verification.” He watched Stockstill and Gill approach. “Have you cleansed yourself?” he asked them. “Are you prepared for the judgment which is to come?”

All at once, from the speaker of the radio, came a familiar voice; it was shaky and muted, but they all recognized it. “Sorry for the pause, folks,” Dangerfield said. “But I sure felt giddy there for a while; I had to lie down and I didn’t notice the tape had ended. Anyhow—“ He laughed his old, familiar laugh. “I’m back. At least for a while. Now, what was I about to do? Does anybody remember? Wait, I’ve got a red light on; somebody’s calling me from below. Hold on.”

The people in the room buzzed with joy and relief; they turned back to the radio, and Bluthgeld was forgotten. Stockstill himself walked toward the radio, and so did Gill and the Negro TV salesman; they joined the circle of smiling people and stood waiting.

“I’ve got a request for ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ “ Dangerfield said. “Can you beat that? Anybody remember the Andrews Sisters? Well, the good old U.S. Government had the kindness to provide me with, believe it or not, a tape of the Andrews Sisters singing this corny but well-loved number ... I guess they figured I was going to be some sort of time capsule on Mars, there.” He chuckled. “So it’s ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ for some old codger in the Great Lakes Area. Here we go.” The music, tinny and archaic, began, and the people in the room gratefully, joyfully, moved one by one back to their seats.

Standing by his chair rigidly, Bruno Bluthgeld listened to the music and thought, I can’t believe it. The man up there is gone; I myself caused him to be destroyed. This must be a fake of some kind. A deception. I know that it is not real.

In any case, he realized, I must exert myself more fully; I must begin again and this time with utmost force. No one was paying attention to him—they had all turned their attention back to the radio—so he left his chair and made his way quietly from the Hall, outside into the darkness.

Down the road the tall antenna at Hoppy Harrington’s house glowed and pulsed and hummed; Bruno Bluthgeld, puzzled, noted it as he walked along toward his horse, where he had left the beast tied up. What was the phocomelus doing? Lights blazed behind the windows of the tarpaper house; Hoppy was busy at work.

I must include him, too, Bluthgeld said to himself. He must cease to exist along with the others, for he is as evil as they are. Perhaps more so.

As he passed Hoppy’s house he sent a stray, momentary thought of destruction of Hoppy’s direction. The lights, however, remained on and the antenna mast continued to hum. It will take more mind-force, Bluthgeld realized, and I don’t have the time right now. A little later.

Meditating profoundly, he continued on.