told the boy. "I think I know how we canget in touch with the Saucer people."
"But they _have_ tried."
"Yes, I know--with radio and blinker lights and all that. But maybethat's the wrong way. Bobby, you're a telepath, aren't you?"
"I'm not very good at it and anyway I don't think it'll work."
"Why not?"
"I tried once, but I couldn't seem to get anywhere. They seemed--Idunno--funny."
"In what way?" Ward asked the boy.
"Just sort of funny."
"Well, if we're lucky, maybe we can try again tonight."
"Yeah," Bobby said, "it's probably a good night for it. Full moon. Whydo you suppose they seem to like the full moon, John?"
"I wish I knew."
It didn't look as if they were going to have any luck. They had waitedfor two hours and Bobby was asleep on a bench in the small "duck blind"the Watchers used. Then John heard it.
It was a high shimmer of sound and it gave him gooseflesh, as it alwaysdid. He couldn't see anything yet. Then it appeared to the north, verylow, like a coagulation of the moonlight itself, and he shook the boy.
Bobby was awake immediately and, together, they watched its approach. Itwas moving slowly, turned on an edge. It looked like a knife of light.Then it rolled over, or shifted its form, and the familiar shapeappeared. The humming stopped and the Saucer floated in the moonlightlike a giant metallic lily-pad, perhaps a half mile away.
"Try now, Bobby," he said, attempting to keep calm.
The boy stood in the moonlight in front of the blind, very still, as ifcollecting the silence out of the night. Once he shook his head asthough to clear it and started to say something. Then, for a longminute, he held his face toward the moon as if he were listening.
Suddenly, he giggled.
"What is it?" Ward snapped, unable to repress his impatience.
"I'm not sure. I thought it seemed something like a joke."
"Try to ask where they're from."
A moment later, the boy shook his head. "I guess I can't get anything,"he said. "All I seem to get is that they're saying, '_We're here_.' Asif they didn't understand me."
"All right. Try to get _anything_."
A moment later, the ship turned on edge, or shifted its shape, and slidback into the sky. Ward picked up the phone and called Saucer Control.
"Got it," the bored voice said.
He put down the phone and sat in silence, feeling sick with frustration.
"Might as well knock off, Bobby," he said gently to the boy. "I guessthat's all for the night. You run along and hit the sack."
The boy started to leave and then turned back. "I'm sorry, John," hesaid. "I guess I'm not very good at it. There's one thing though...." Hehesitated.
"Yes?"
"I don't think they know any poetry. In fact, I'm pretty sure of that."
"All right," Ward said, laughing. "I guess that's the most importantthing in _your_ life right now. Run along, Bobby."
* * * * *
An hour later, his watch ended and he started for home, still feelingdepressed at having failed. He was passing the dormitory when he saw it.It hung in the air, almost overhead. The color of the moonlight itself,it was hard to spot. But it was not the Saucer that held him rigid withattention.
Over the roof of the dormitory, small and growing smaller as it wentstraight toward the Saucer, he saw a figure, then another and then athird. While he watched, there was a jet of blue light from the objectin the sky--the opening of an airlock, he thought--and the figuresdisappeared, one by one, into the interior of the ship. Ward began torun.
It was strictly forbidden for a teacher to enter the dormitory--thatpart of the boys' world was completely their own. But he ignored thatruling now as he raced up the stairs. All he could think of was thatthis was the chance to identify the invaders. The boys who had levitatedthemselves up to the Saucer would be missing.
He was still exultantly certain of this as he jerked open the doors ofthe first three rooms. Each one was empty. And the fourth and fifth, aswell. Frantically, he pulled open door after door, going through themotions, although his mind told him that it was useless, that all of theboys, with a Saucer so close, would be out looking at it.
Wait until they returned? He couldn't remain in the dormitory and, evenif he did, when they all came back, how could he find out which boys hadgone up to the ship? They wouldn't be likely to tell, nor would theothers, even if they knew. Aimlessly, he went on opening doors, flashinghis Watcher's light.
Perhaps there would be a clue in one of the rooms. Excited again, herapidly checked them, rummaging in closets, picking up their sportsthings and their toys. Nothing there. Until he found the book.
It was an odd-looking book, in a language he couldn't read. He looked atit doubtfully. Was the script simply Cyrillic? Or Hebrew? He stuffed itinto his pocket and glanced around at the walls of the room. Pictures ofathletes, mostly, and a couple of pin-ups. In a drawer, under someclothing, a French post card. He examined some of the objects on thedresser.
Then he was looking stupidly at his hand. He was holding a piece ofstring with a ring attached to it. And, just as certainly, there wassomething attached to the other end. Or it had been. But there wasnothing he could see now. He pulled on the string and it tightened. Yes,there was a drag on the other end, _but there was nothing he could see... or feel_.
He tried to reconstruct his actions. He had been pawing among thethings. He had taken hold of the string and had pulled somethingattached to the end of it off the table. The thing had fallen anddisappeared--but _where_? It was _still_ tied to the string, but wherewas it?
Another dimension, he thought, feeling the hair stand up on his neck,the sudden riot of his blood as he knew he had found the evidence hewanted.
He snapped off the light and groped his way rapidly down the stairs.Once on the street, he began to run. It did not occur to him to feelridiculous at dragging along behind him, on the end of a string, someobject which he could not see.
* * * * *
"Okay," Ann said. "But what _is_ it?" She sat on the divan looking atthe book.
"I don't know, but I think it's alien."
"_I_ think it's a comic book. In some foreign language--or maybe inclassical Greek for all we know." She pointed to an illustration. "Isn'tthis like the fish you caught? Of course it is. And look at thefisherman--his clothes are funny looking, but I'll bet he's tellingabout the one that got away."
"Damn it, don't joke! What about _this_?" He waved the string.
"Well, what about it?"
"It's extra-dimensional. It's...." He jerked the string with nervousrepetition and, suddenly, something was in his hand. Surprised, hedropped it. It disappeared and he felt the tug on the end of the string.
"There _is_ something!" He began jerking the string and it was thereagain. This time he held it, looking at it with awe.
It was neither very big nor very heavy. It was probably made out of somekind of glass or plastic. The color was dazzling, but that was not whatmade him turn his head away--it was the shape of the thing. Somethingwas wrong with its surfaces. Plane melted into plane, the surface curvedand rejoined itself. He felt dizzy.
"What is it, John?"
"Something--something like a Klein Bottle--or a tesseract--or maybe bothof them together." He looked at it for a moment and then turned awayagain. It was impossible to look at it very long. "It's something builtto cut through our three-dimensional space," he said. He dropped it,then tugged. The thing dropped out of sight and reappeared again,rolling up the string toward his hand.
That was when he lost control. He lay down on the floor and howled in aseizure of laughter that was like crying.
"_John!_" Ann said primly. "John Ward, you _stop_!" She went out of theroom and returned with a glass half full of whisky.
Ward got up from the floor and weakly slouched in a chair. He took along drink from the glass, lit his pipe with grea
t deliberation, andspoke very softly. "Well," he said, "I think we've got the answer."
"Have we?"
"Sure. It was there all the time and I couldn't see it. I always thoughtit was strange we couldn't get in touch with the Outspacers. I had Bobbytry tonight--_he_ couldn't do anything either. I thought maybe he wasn'ttrying--or that he was one of them and didn't want to let me in on it.He said they sounded--funny. By that, he meant strange or alien, Ithought."
"Well, I'm sure they must be," Ann said, relaxed now that John'soutburst was over.
"Yes.
What Rough Beast? Page 4