They would have to speak to him sooner or later. They were going to have to come through that door. He positioned himself behind the desk, securely wedged against any further movement, the laser lance and pistol both pointed toward the door. He was ready for them now. A little late, true, but who can guard against the totally unexpected?
He couldn’t tell how long he had been in the darkness. The room was like a total immersion tank, all sense of time was lost.
But he did realize when, after a while, the movements of the room stopped.
They would be coming now.
He squinted toward the door, hoping to protect his eyes against the sudden burst of light which would come forth when it was opened. His finger was ready on the trigger.
Then the telephone rang.
XIII.
“Yes, who is this?” Esplendadore barked into the telephone.
“Sir, I am Allan Bantry, Alien Psychologist for the Fleet.”
“Bantry, I don’t know what the hell you are doing on the phone. Where’s Haskwell? Where’s Wintage? Where’s my Chief of Staff.”
“Actually, sir, they’re off with the troops. They’re planning a commando action to rescue you.”
“Damn good show,” Esplendadore said. “Tell them to get those men moving at once. Where the hell am I, by the way?”
“Admiral, your suite of rooms has been cut loose from the main complex and carried a distance of almost half a mile from base perimeter. I’m working to have television reception restored to you. There it is, now you can see for yourself.”
The TV monitors flashed into life. On three sides, Esplendadore was looking down into a pit slanting downward into a deep chasm. On the fourth side, he saw a narrow tongue of land extended over the chasm. His suite of rooms seemed to be perched on that tongue of land.
“The reason I want you to delay the commandos,” Bantry said, “is that I’m afraid too much movement could collapse the tongue of land your suite is perched on and send the whole thing into the pit.”
“Well, hell, that’s no good,” Esplendadore said. “Tell them in my name to hold off, or to find some other way of hitting at the bastards who have kidnapped me. By the way, who did kidnap me?”
Bantry hesitated. “Sir, you aren’t going to like the answer.”
“What has that got to do with it? Just tell me!”
“You aren’t going to like this at all, sir.”
“Bantry, stop blabbering and tell me.”
Bantry cleared his throat. “Admiral Esplendadore, what would you say if I told you that the connections attaching your suite to the rest of the building have been severed by the actions of several million hard-backed beetles each about the size of a one-credit coin?”
“I’d say you were crazy, mister, and that you’re talking yourself straight into a court-martial.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Bantry said.
“I suppose these beetles picked me up on their backs and carried me here?”
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what happened sir. Several million beetles can carry extremely large objects.”
“I warn you,” the Admiral said, “an insanity plea is going to do you no good . . . You’re sure this is what happened, Bantry?”
“Yes sir.”
“Is anyone there with you? Any responsible officer?”
“Your batman, Captain Walters, is here.”
“Put him on. Walters? What about all this?”
“Nobody knows exactly what’s happening,” Walters said. “But what seems to be happening is, someone or something is directing these millions, maybe billions, of beetles. Something or someone with intelligence. Maybe it’s the Khalia, sir.”
“You actually saw this happen?”
“Yes sir. I watched the beetles take you away. We didn’t dare attack them with explosives or gas or fumicides for fear of killing you. So we haven’t been able to take action against them. But just say the word—”
“Don’t be hasty,” Esplendadore said. “We owe it to science and to our own future security to talk with these creatures, find out what they want. Are they attacking my men?”
“No, sir. An unofficial truce line seems to have been established. They stay on their side of it and we stay on ours. So far there have been no hostilities. Aside from your kidnapping, that is, sir.”
“They are actual beetles?” Esplendadore asked.
“As far as we can determine. We don’t have a trained entymologist or whatever those fellows are called who study bugs. But one of our people from Agriculture says they look just like Japanese beetles, only with blue dots.”
“What is known about Japanese beetles?”
“Nobody here knows much about them. Shall I send a CP requesting information?”
“No, don’t do a thing yet. Do you think by any chance you could get a move on and get me out of here?”
“I’m trying, sir. But there are difficulties.”
There were several reasons why Esplendadore wanted out. Not least of which was that when the beetles had taken away his suite of rooms, they had neglected to take the bathroom along with them.
“What difficulties?”
“When we try to approach your suite, they threaten to chew away the landbridge and let you fall into the landfill. It’s a fall of several hundred feet, sir.”
“Well, dammit, can’t you give them something that will lure them away? I have heard that beetles like rotted meat. Tell the cook to try out his latest ration of beef. Pour some honey over it. That ought to get them.”
“I don’t think you understand, Admiral. These are not simple, old-fashioned beetles. I mean, they are not simple-minded in the way we have always known beetles to be. These beetles want to discuss something with you.”
Esplendadore stared at the telephone. “I can just barely believe that a million beetles carted away my suite. But that a beetle told you he wanted to discuss something with me—well, that’s difficult, Walters.”
“Beetles can’t talk, sir, you’re correct about that. Not to us, anyhow, although apparently they can with each other. No, sir, they communicated their demands through an intermediary. It seems that one of our civilian workers, a young lady from the planet Trinitus who works for Dr. Bantry of Alien Psychology, is telepathic. They communicate through her, sir.”
Admiral Esplendadore was tired, and hungry, and his bladder was full, and he was in a ridiculous situation that threatened his career and probably his life.
“Put this young lady on the telephone,” Esplendadore said.
XIV.
“Am I to understand, young lady, that you are in telepathic contact with the king or general or representative of these beetles?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “and believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are about it. I always knew I had the second-sight, but I never knew it could get me into something like this. Communicating with an alien species I mean. But I suppose it’s Allan’s fault—Dr. Bandy’s, I mean—because he made me do the mind exercises that made this whole communication thing possible.”
“Young lady,” the Admiral said, “a little less personal history, all right?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was just trying to explain.”
“Now then, these beetles. Who directs them?”
“They direct themselves, sir. Under their President, I mean. She told me to tell you that.”
“They have a President?”
“Not an actual one, sir. An imaginary one.”
“These beetles have an imaginary President?”
“It’s a little hard to explain, sir. See, they have a single group mind, a mind which is made up of a part of all their minds. If I understand it correctly. I mean it’s almost as new to me as it is to you. So bear with me, sir. Sorry to keep on explaining, sir.”
“And these beetles were able to plan my kidnapping, and taking me out here and threatening my life?”
“Yes, sir. That is, they planned your kidnapping, but they are
n’t really threatening your life. They just want to get your attention.”
“Well, they’ve got it. What is it they want?”
“They want you to leave Xanadu.”
“But it’s the best spot on the planet!”
“They feel that way, too, sir. In fact, it’s the only place on the planet where they can live. It was better in the old days, they say, but that’s how it is now. They also point out that they have lived here for a long time. They claim that you are invading them, and that this is contrary to the rules of the Great Charter of the Alliance as they have understood it through my explanations. Government was never my strongest subject, sir, but I did my best. We do say that planets are the sole property of their indigenous intelligent races, don’t we, sir?”
“Yes, we certainly do.”
“I just wanted to be sure I got that part right. They point out that you can spend a little more money and bring in soil and water and stuff from wherever it is you come from (that’s how they express it, sir) and make your own Xanadu. There’s plenty of room. They’d even be glad to give you samples of local seeds and stuff. But they say it’s not right that you should try to occupy the only spot on the planet where they can live.”
“Wait just a minute,” the Admiral said. He put down the telephone, and, in a move carefully thought out beforehand, relieved himself in an empty coffee thermos jug. He capped it carefully and returned to the telephone.
“I don’t understand their problem,” the Admiral said. “We’re not competing with them. They can continue to do whatever it is beetles do in this valley. Why should they care if we build a few buildings?
“It’s not so much the buildings,” Lea said. “It’s the other stuff that’s burning them up.”
“What stuff are you referring to?”
“Bringing in all those alien plants and trying to get them to grow here. They consider that a violation of fundamental ethics, and they are fighting both for themselves and for their vegetable allies.”
“To hell with them,” Esplendadore said. “I won’t have anything to do with a race that accuses our plant life of acts of aggression.”
XV.
Several hours later, Admiral Esplendadore gave his word as an officer of the Fleet that he would set up his camp in a different region of Klaxon, at least one hundred miles from the Valley.
The Admiral was no coward. He would have chosen death if he felt he was doing something disadvantageous to the Alliance and the Fleet. He agreed because the Ariji offered to send several million of their number along with the Fleet to the new base location, and there assist in the work to the extent of their abilities.
Esplendadore could see at once how greatly this would speed things up. Although he was certain of his ability to wipe out every living thing in Xanadu any time he wanted to, that would gain nothing. What counted was getting the base built.
Despite this, Esplendadore was reluctant to inform the Fleet that he had conducted a treaty with a race of beetles.
It couldn’t be kept secret for long, of course. It was too big.
And when it did break, it was going to mean great things for Allan Bantry, the alien psychologist who had made this discovery. He was probably going to have a whole new school of alien psychology named after him, and get a really good research lab.
Allan was very nice to me after that, but he seemed nervous when I was around. When I asked him what the matter was, he just said he was in awe of me. I knew that that was a bad sign, romantically speaking. But I couldn’t help it, I was pretty awesome. Especially after they named me Senior Linguist to the Ariji, since I was the only one who could talk with them, and anyhow, Iris insisted. It was an important position, but a lonely one, until I met Armand Dunkirk, the very presentable young charge d’affaires who came out from Earth to establish the first Consulate for Alien Invertebrate Intelligences. But that is a different story.
MESSAGE FROM HELL
My dead brother-in-law Howard came to me in a dream and said, “Hi, Tom, long time no see; I’ve missed you, buddy, how you been?”
I trusted him no more dead than when he was alive. He had always been against Tracy and me. The first time we met, when Tracy brought me to her home and introduced me as the young man she had met in the writing program at NYU, her parents weren’t exactly ecstatic about me, but Howard’s reaction had been somewhat colder than frigid. He made it clear that he didn’t want a down-at-heels writer marrying his one, his only, his beloved kid sister, Tracy.
But to Hell with that, right? Tracy and I got married and took a little apartment in Coconut Grove. I can’t prove it, but I know it was Howard who tipped the cops that I was a big dope dealer masquerading as a bohemian. They came in with guns drawn and that wild who-do-I-shoot-first look in their eyes, expecting to find a laboratory in my closet or under my bed, where I turned paste into top grade cocaine. Ironic that they should expect this of me—a man who had flunked elementary science in college and whose idea of a chemical reaction was dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass of water.
They didn’t find a thing, and the half ounce of mediocre weed under my socks finally was ruled inadmissible evidence. But it put a strain on our relationship all the same.
Lots of people marry without the approval of their family. Tracy and I did. We figured Howard would cool off after a while.
That year I sold my fifth short story and got my first novel contract, despite Howard spreading it around that I was a no-talent plagiarist and that Tracy wrote all my stuff for me.
Steady waves of hatred emanated from his stucco house in Coral Gables, permeating our little jungle apartment in the Grove. Things weren’t going so well for Tracy and me. I won’t say it was his fault, but he sure didn’t help.
She had a nervous breakdown, left me, went to Houston, lived with a girlfriend for a while, divorced me, and married somebody else. This was during the time I was finishing my second novel. I’m pretty sure Howard paid off somebody at the Miami Herald to give my book the worst review in the history of southern Florida.
So, in light of all this, perhaps you can understand why I didn’t exactly mourn when, two years later, a rusted-out ‘73 Buick coupe driven by a drunk skindiving instructor from Marathon Shores screeched over the curb on Oceanside Boulevard like a bumper-toothed monster seeking its prey, and sieved Howard through the iron mesh fence at the foot of South Beach.
It was unworthy of me to feel so good about his getting killed, but I did. I couldn’t have planned it better myself. I liked it so much I wished I’d thought of it first. I must also confess that attending Howard’s funeral was the best day I had all year. I’m not proud of this, but there it is. I was miserable and I was glad he was dead and I wondered where he came off now stepping into my dream like this.
“Look, Howard,” I said, “just what in the Hell are you doing in my dream, anyhow?”
“Funny you should mention Hell,” Howard said, with that quick nervous laugh of his. “That’s where I live these days.”
“I could have figured that out for myself,” I said.
“Come on, lighten up, Tom,” Howard said, with a flash of irritation. “I’m not in Hell because I was bad. Everybody’s here—everybody I’ve ever known, and most of the people I’ve ever heard of. I mean this is the place people go to after they die. Nobody even calls it Hell. I call it that because nobody ever smiles around here and I figure this has got to be the place. But it’s not bad. There’s a guy who runs things. He tells us to just call him Mr. Smith. But I figure he’s the Devil. He doesn’t seem to be a bad fellow and he’s very cultured.”
“I always figured the Devil would be a businessman,” I said. “Or possibly a scientist.”
“There you go with that cynicism, Tom,” Howard said. “As a matter of fact, the Devil is an art critic and an expert on contemporary culture.”
“Did he tell you that himself?”
“It’s the only way I can explain how all the best jobs down here go to artists, writ
ers, sculptors, musicians, painters, dancers . . . And they get the best housing, too, and the new cars.”
I was interested. As I have mentioned, I’m a writer, not wildly successful, but not entirely unknown, either. My mother had always told me that my reward would come in Heaven, or wherever I happened to land. And here was proof of sorts.
“Tell me more,” I said.
“A person’s status down here depends entirely on how well known he was on Earth. The Supreme Court is run by guys like Tolstoi, Melville, Nijinsky, Beethoven. Even a loser like Poe has been given the directorship of a large interlocking conglomerate and he gets paid whether he works or not.”
“I really like the sound of this,” I said. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Oh, it’s fine for guys like you,” Howard said, with some bitterness. “For the rest of us it’s not so great.”
My brother-in-law told me that he lived in a one-room semidetached house in a small suburb on the outskirts of Hell. His work—the only work available—was sorting gravel according to size and number of facets. All the unknowns did that.
“Doesn’t sound too tough,” I said.
“It’s not. The real punishment is boredom. They did give me a television, but the reception is lousy and the only program I can get is I Love Lucy reruns. We also get to see a baseball game once a week, but it’s always the same one, Phillies and Red Sox, Fenway Park, 1982. I could recite it for you play by play.”
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