A baseball game from Chicago was soon rejected. A soap opera was considerably more interesting; the controller was content to listen and listen as the characters talked and talked. Nor did the controller"s attention flag during commercials.
After one soap opera came another, until eventually the children"s programs began.
Brats of the 1930s cavorted improbably in old films, and then their mod-era descendants, mixed in with furry puppet-monsters, appeared to do their thing on videotape.
When a man"s face appeared to say that it was time for the six o"clock news, Dan"s master made him reach out an arm and snap off the set. Control went off at the same instant, so suddenly that his extended arm fell thwack against his chair. Evidently it was time again to maintain the body"s strength.
He had just gotten to his feet, wondering prosaically what he should have for dinner, when the front doorbell rang, once and then twice more in rapid succession, and control was back on him with the swiftness of a sprung trap. Under total control his body moved to answer the door.
At six o"clock it was still bright summer day outside. On the porch waited two solid- looking men with business-like eyes. They wore sportcoats over open-collared shirts; the younger of the two was very large.
The older one flashed something in his hand at Dan. "Mr. Post? We"re from the police. Mind if we come in?"
Dan"s body had frozen into immobility in the doorway . ""What"s it all about?"" his controlled voice asked. The voice spoke more rapidly now, Dan noticed, and with a more modern accent. Meanwhile Dan"s mind felt faint, was holding its psychic breath against the impact of what looked like imminent salvation.
"We just have a few questions we"d like to ask. It"s concerning your children."
There was a pause, a pause that Dan felt was too long by normal contemporary human standards, but might have been just right in one of the afternoon"s soap operas, wherein non-events were stretched and padded out to fill a measured chunk of real time.
It would have to give the game away now, by one blunder or another. Dan had the feeling that his relief would have made him weak in the knees had not his knees like the rest of his body been seemingly disconnected from his mind. Mrs. Follett, you did come through. G.o.d bless all nosy neighbors, forever and ever amen.
"What"s happened?" Dan"s lips asked, at last.
"Can we come in?"
Stiffly his body made way for the two detectives, while his eyes gauged them, their size and bearing, the way they walked. Then, looking out, he saw their unmarked car in front of the house, parked in a slightly careless fashion with a rear fender sticking out onto the pavement. Dan"s eyes rested momentarily on the microphone of the car"s two- way radio, which was just visible, along with a small curl of insulated wire, above the dash.
If the controller had any personal emotions, they were being kept under control just as firmly as were Dan"s. Dan"s hand closing the door behind the police was perfectly steady, as was his voice when he turned to confront them inside his house.
"What"s happened to my kids?"
""Why do you think something might have happened to them, Mr. Post? Lots of times we call on parents just because their kids have gotten into trouble of some kind."
"My kids don"t perpetrate any crimes. Now what"s wrong?" The voice was still wrong, for one thing, and the choice of words still not really right. But good enough, maybe, to get by.
The older man, who was doing all the talking so far, softened his own voice a bit.
""We"re just trying to find out if something might have happened to them, Mr. Post. Now you have a girl and a boy, don"t you? Millie and Sam?"
"That"s right. What"s happened?"
"And where are Sam and Millie right now, Mr. Post?"
"At this moment?" G.o.d bless you, Mrs. Follett. He was saying it over and over in his mind. ""I had thought they were in school. Do you tell me now that they are somewhere else?"
""Mind telling me just what school they"re attending, Mr. Post?" These two men looking at him so steadily from behind the casual questions were not going to be put off with casual lies, and they were not going to be overpowered and dragged into the bas.e.m.e.nt, either, not by one Dan Post-model puppet. Were the crab"s feet moving now upon the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, softly coming toward the stairs? Odd, ball-shaped feet that didn"t fit ... his body was talking again: "Sit down, gentlemen, won"t you? I"ll try to answer all your questions. But it may take a little time."" Dan"s body calmly took a chair for itself, even as his hand gestured stiffly toward seats for the others. Even if the crab should climb the stair and strike, there was the car outside. If these men did not get back to the station on schedule, or call in, others would soon be coming to find out why.
"Thanks, we"ll stand." The older, graying detective continued to do the talking, while the huge young one hovered in the background, hands behind his back or loose and ready at his sides. Both of them were looking at Dan with open suspicion now, while he sat regarding them with what felt like an open, friendly look but gave no information.
"Mr. Post, can"t you tell me what the name of your children"s school is? And when you saw them last?"
"Of course. I saw them no more than a few hours ago."
"Some time last night?"
"Why, no. This morning."
"Before they left for school?"
""Officers, if you"ll tell me just what this is all about, perhaps I can be more helpful."
"You were going to tell me the name of their school."" The graying detective changed his mind about sitting down, and sank into the chair opposite Dan, running a hand wearily over his forehead. Maybe it had been a hard day, fighting crime in the peaceful suburbs.
"Did you hurt your face somehow?" put in the oversized partner, unexpectedly, from his looming stance in the background. "You have some scratches there." Now the big man too was rubbing at his own eyes.
""Yes,"" said the voice from Dan"s lips, and with that a brief silence fell.
The older man"s eyes were boring steadily into his, waiting to be told the name of the non-existent school. It"s all up with you now, controller. Throw your weapons down . . . .
In the prison of his own skull, Dan was thinking bleakly that the thing probably had available some way of killing him rather than let him go; and it might kill its specimens, too. But its secrecy was destroyed, its mission ended. Now it faced no primitive, struggling village or isolated farm. In late twentieth-century America it faced too many brains and weapons, too much organization ....
The older detective was speaking again, but in the fullness of his relief Dan was not paying attention enough to understand the words. Then abruptly Dan realized that control had been lifted from him. He jumped to his feet.
The older policeman did not react to the movement. He only continued to sit in his chair, still gazing intently at the chair where Dan had been. He was nodding gently now, a mild smile on his lined face. The big young cop was leaning now against the mantel, and also staring steadily at nothing.
""Listen!"" Dan grabbed the big one by his sportcoat sleeves. Like trying to move an offensive tackle out of his place. "Snap out of it! Help me! My kids are being murdered in the bas.e.m.e.nt!" The big guy almost toppled from Dan"s pulling and shaking, then stuck out a powerful arm and pushed Dan"s hands away, meanwhile continuing to gaze off into the distance, where something most entrancing was.
Dan spun away and grabbed at the older man, lifted him right up out of his chair with a grip on shirt and arm, shook him limply like some rag-stuffed tackling dummy. But the detective was not provoked into response. When Dan let go he slid to the floor in a collapse with his head down, rump elevated, like a sleeping baby.
Almost sobbing now in incoherent rage, Dan turned from one of the detectives to the other, kicking and cursing and slapping at them, to no avail. Then he suddenly thrust a hand inside the bigger detective"s jacket, reaching for the holster that he a.s.sumed was there. He had guessed right, but his fingers had no more than touched the hardness of a gun-b.u.t.t before total control was back again, clamping his hands and arms into a statue- like rigidity. Thrown off balance, he toppled to fall beside the other man on the floor. A scream of despair was choked in Dan"s throat before it could begin.
Then, moving smoothly under total control, Dan"s body got to its feet and looked around. It walked to the windows and looked out. The police car still waited beside the street. The world outside was undisturbed and unalarmed.
At a rustling of clothing behind him, his body turned. The police were both standing up straight again, casually adjusting rumpled domes and brushing themselves off. Their eyes were in focus once again on Dan"s, but their faces were still in strange repose.
"Sorry to have bothered you, sir," the older one said. He gave Dan the abstracted smile of a busy man whose mind has already shifted to some future task. He and his partner began to make their way toward the door.
""Wait, officers."" Control was still willing to let Dan talk, although he could not move.
"My children. Save my children." His voice was unrecognizable now, less like his own than was the enemy"s impersonation. "Save them, they"re still alive, I know it. Down under the house."
"That"s quite all right, sir. No trouble at all."
"Under the house, under ..."
""Thanks for your co-operation."" Nodding and smiling, they went out, pulling the front door carefully shut behind them.
Before their car pulled away, his body walked to a window from which it could observe the Folletts" house. There was the telltale twitch of curtain.
NINE.
When it let go of Dan again he went straight to the kitchen cabinet in which he kept his small supply of booze. If memory served him right, there should be a fifth of bourbon on the shelf, still about half full.
His memory was correct. But no sooner had his arm brought the bottle out than it was stopped by the puppet-strings. The bottle was moved up carefully before his face, and his eyes were made to scrutinize the label thoroughly.
"I tell you you"d better let me have this," he muttered savagely to his unseen master.
"Better let me have it, if you want me to keep functioning at all,""
After it had studied the label, and used his nose to sniff the contents, it turned him loose. At once he reached for a shot gla.s.s and poured himself a drink and downed it, neat. Ordinarily he never could have taken whisky that way, but right now it tasted like so much tea.
Fighting back an urge for the cigarettes that he had given up five years earlier, Dan brought the bottle and gla.s.s along and went to sit at the kitchen table. On the table still lay the pencil and pad of paper that had been used in the morning"s seance.
"All right," he said quietly, looking down at his hands folded before him. "So you want me to keep functioning, for a while at least. That means you want me to help you in some way."" He took up the bottle and slowly poured himself another shot. No, only half a shot this time. "Somewhere along the line, in whatever you"re planning next, you"re going to want my willing co-operation. Or at least things will be easier for you if I can be brought to co-operate. Right?"
No answer. He looked at his hand and at the waiting paper, but nothing happened.
Dan took a sip from his gla.s.s, and sloshed the liquor around inside his cheeks like mouthwash. "There is something I need, too. Maybe we can trade." He paused. "I want my children back, alive and - essentially unharmed. For that I"ll be willing to cooperate.
I"ll help you get other people to replace them, if that"s what you want."
He drank again. He wondered now, with sudden understanding, how often the enemy might have heard this same speech. From Clareson, from Schwartz, the one the farm boys said was crazy. No doubt there had been others.
His right thumb gave a little preliminary twitch, and then his hand took the pencil up.
It lettered, OFFER TENTATIVELY ACCEPTED. WE WILL NEGOTIATE.
His reply was quick: ""First, how do I know you can deliver? How do I know they"re not already dead down there?"
IF THEIR VIABILITY CAN BE DEMONSTRATED, ARE YOU THEN WILLING TO.
HELP ME COLLECT MORE SPECIMENS?.
"Yes. Yes." He would promise it anything, and at the same time allow himself no shred of comforting belief in anything it promised him. Clareson and Schwartz and their families, how did they wind up?
Dan suddenly recalled the diary, the first time he had thought of it since he had fallen into the controller"s grasp. It was dated in the 1850s, which must be about Clareson"s time. Dan had only scanned it very briefly, before giving it to Nancy, and now he could remember practically nothing of its contents. Anyway Nancy had it now, and it just might be of some help . . .
GET THE NEWSPAPER. It always neatly penciled in the proper punctuation marks.
Dan wondered why it preferred to put its communications down on paper rather than make him talk to himself. Maybe it had tried the latter method on some of its victims only to find it brought their mental collapse on sooner and more certainly.
When he came back to the kitchen table with the newspaper it took over his hands with seemingly impatient speed and turned the pages rapidly. It remembered exactly the pages it was looking for.
First it turned to the j.a.panese earthquake pictures on the back page. With the pencil it drew an almost mathematically precise circle around each of the Oriental faces that were plainly visible in the photos. Then it lettered in the upper margin of the page: SPECIMENS OF THIS RACIAL GROUP ARE HIGHLY DESIRABLE.
The face of the j.a.panese woman turned toward the camera, contorted with her pain and grief, was suddenly Nancy"s face. What if she took it into her head to come out tonight after all? Or tomorrow she would certainly come, unless he could phone her, invent some story, provoke a quarrel, anything to keep her off. Could he make up some convincing explanation for his master, that would let him call her tomorrow morning and get her to stay away? . . . but right now negotiations were in progress, he had to follow what it was doing with the paper. Again his hands were rapidly turning pages, this time stopping at an article about the plight of the aged in their nursing homes.
Again there were photographs.
ALSO ONE OF THIS DEGENERATED BUT PRESERVED CONDITION. EITHER.
s.e.x. ANY RACIAL GROUP.
His hands were released. It was his move row.
He picked up the whisky bottle, looked at it, then recapped it firmly and took it back to the cabinet. Then he turned to face the empty room and asked: "And if I help you get these - specimens - you want, will my children and I be left completely free? What I mean is, are we supposed to go on living here with - that - beneath our house?"
He got no answer until he remembered to walk back to the table where the pencil and paper were.
IF YOU HELP ME YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE SET COMPLETELY FREE.
IN A MATTER OF DAYS. THE TIME IS NEAR FOR THIS COLLECTOR OF.
SPECIMENS TO DEPART.
From behind him Dan heard the bas.e.m.e.nt door click open.
He turned in his chair, and was then held motionless, this time not by any external influence. Sammy stood in the kitchen doorway, pale-faced and slumping against the wall. His white T-shirt bore the marks of the struggle on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, but his arms and neck showed no marks where the blunt needles had adhered. The boy was alive and himself, but himself as he might have appeared after a long illness. Illness was suggested not by any real wasting of his body, but by his slumping pose and by the pallor and the expression of his face.
"Daddy?"" the voice seemed to come from the babyhood of years ago. "What"s wrong?
I had a terrible dream ..."
Dan moved now. But even as he lifted his son up in his arms, he felt the control of his arms being taken effortlessly away from him. They now supported Sam"s weight impersonally, and Dan"s controlled legs now walked back toward the bas.e.m.e.nt door.
"Daddy, I feel all pins and needles ... I had to climb out of that box . . . Daddy, no, don"t put me back in there again ..." But this time Sam was too weak to put up much of a fight. He could only cry, weakly and uselessly, as Daddy"s arms bore him back down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs and then once more down into the alien place beneath.
Sam"s crystal box was waiting on the gimbaled table, under the green lights, its top swung back as if on hinges although there were no hinges to be seen. Dan"s body put him in and then stood back at attention while the blunt-needled probes came out once more from the wall. This time the process was swifter than before. In less than a minute the box had resealed itself, leaving no visible seam, and Sam was being swung away in his terrible sleep to hang with the other specimens against the curving bulkhead of the alien ship.
This time Dan was not released on parole until he was halfway up the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs; he continued the climb himself, with scarcely a break in stride.
In the kitchen he stood at the table, looking down at the newspaper with its circled faces, and at the printed orders that the enemy had so confidently omitted to destroy.
But it was not omnipotent, or it would not want his help.
At last he said: "All right, I"ll accept that you can restore my children to me. So I"ll help you. What must I do?"
SUGGEST A PLAN FOR OBTAINING THE SPECIMENS I WANT.
He sighed. He hadn"t expected this. "You"re going to have to let me think about it a little,"" he said at last. "It won"t be easy to just - obtain people. It isn"t possible to simply buy them anymore, you understand. At least not in this part of the world."
He sat down at the table and picked up the pencil and toyed with it in his fingers.