The two walked toward Bentley and stopped in front of him.
“I presume,” said the man, “that you are the proprietor.”
Something was wrong with the way he talked. He slurred his words. But he was entirely understandable.
“I suppose,” said Bentley, “you mean do I own the joint.”
“Perhaps I do,” the other said. “My speech may not be of this day, but you seem to hear me rightly.”
“Sure I do,” said Bentley, “but what about this day? You mean to tell me you speak different every day?”
“I do not mean that at all,” said the man. “You must pardon our intrusion. It must appear unseemly. We’ll endeavor not to harm your property.”
“Well, I tell you, friend,” said Bentley, “I don’t own the place. I’m just holding down the homestead for an absent owner. Will you ask those people not to go tramping over flower beds? Joe’s missus will be awful sore if she comes home and finds those flowers messed up. She sets a store by them.”
All the time that they’d been talking, people had been coming through the door and now they were all over the place and spilling over into the yards next door and the neighbors were coming out to see what was going on.
The girl smiled brightly at Bentley. “I think you can be easy about the flowers,” she said. “These are good people, well-intentioned and on their best behavior.”
“They count upon your sufferance,” said the man. “They are refugees.”
Bentley took a good look at them. They didn’t look like refugees. In his time, in many different parts of the world, he had photographed a lot of refugees. They were grubby and usually packed a lot of plunder, but these people were neat and clean and they carried very little, a small piece of luggage, perhaps, or a sort of attache case, like the one the man who was speaking with him had tucked under one arm.
“They don’t look like refugees to me,” he said. “Where are they refugeeing from?”
“From the future,” said the man. “We beg utmost indulgence of you. What we are doing, I assure you, is a matter of our life or death.”
That shook Bentley up. He went to take a drink of beer and then decided not to and, reaching down, set the beer can on the lawn. He rose slowly from his chair.
“I tell you, mister,” he said, “if this is some sort of publicity stunt I won’t lift a camera. I wouldn’t take no shot of no publicity stunt, no matter what it was.”
“Publicity stunt?” asked the man and there could be no doubt that he was plainly puzzled. “I am sorry, sir. What you say eludes me.”
Bentley took a close look at the door. People still were coming out of it, still four and five abreast and there seemed no end to them. The opening hung there as he first had seen it, a slightly ragged blob of darkness that quivered at the edges. It blotted out a small section of the lawn, but behind and beyond it he could see the trees and shrubs and the play-set in the back yard of the house next door.
If it was a publicity stunt, he decided, it was a topnotch job. A lot of PR jerks must have beat their brains out to dream up one like this. How had they rigged that ragged hole and where did all the people come from?
“We come,” said the man, “from five hundred years in the future. We are fleeing from the end of the human race. We ask your help and understanding.”
Bentley stared at him. “Mister,” he asked, “you wouldn’t kid me, would you? If I fell for this I would lose my job.”
“We expected, naturally,” said the man, “to encounter disbelief. I realize there is no way we can prove our origin. We ask you, please, to accept us as we define ourselves.”
“I tell you what,” said Bentley. “I will go with the gag. I will take some shots, but if I find it’s publicity—”
“You are speaking, I presume, of taking photographs.”
“Of course I am,” said Bentley. “The camera is my business, understand?”
“We didn’t come to have photographs taken of us. If you have some compunctions about this matter, please feel free to follow them. We will not mindat all.”
“So you don’t want your pictures taken,” Bentley said fiercely. “You’re like a lot of other people. You get into a jam and then you scream because someone snaps a picture of you.”
“We have no objections,” said the man. “Take as many pictures as you wish.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
Bentley swung about, heading for the back door. His foot caught the can.of beer as he turned and sent it flying.
Three cameras lay on the kitchen table, where he had been working with them before he’d gone out to broil the steak. He grabbed up one of them and was turning back toward the door when he thought of Molly. Maybe he’d better let Molly know about this, he told himself. The guy had said all these people were coming from the future and if that were true, it would be nice for Molly to be in on it from the start. Not that he believed a word of it, of course, but it was mighty funny, no matter what was going on.
He picked up the kitchen phone and dialed. He grumbled at himself. He was wasting time when he should be taking pictures. Molly might not be home. It was Sunday and a nice day and there was no reason to expect to find her home. Molly answered.
“Molly, this is Bentley. You know where I live?”
“You’re over in Virginia. Mooching free rent off Joe while he is gone.”
“It ain’t like that at all. I’m taking care of the place for him. Edna, she has all these flowers—”
“Ha!” said Molly.
“What I called about,” said Bentley, “is would you come over here?”
“I will not,” said Molly. “If you have in mind making passes at me you have to take me out.”
“I ain’t making passes at no one,” Bentley protested. “I got people walking out of a door all over the back yard. They say they’ve from the future, from five hundred years ahead.”
“What! Impossible—”
“That’s what I think, too. But where are they coming from? There must be a thousand of them out there. Even if they’re not from the future it ought to be a story. You better haul your tail out here and talk with some of them. Have your byline in all the morning papers.”
“Bentley, this is on the level?”
“On the level,” Bentley said. “I ain’t drunk and I’m not trying to trick you out here and—”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be right out. You better call the office. Manning had to take the Sunday trick himself this week and he’s not too happy with it, so be careful how you say hi, there. But he’ll want to get some other people out there. If this isn’t just a joke—”
“It’s not any joke,” said Bentley. “I ain’t crazy enough to joke myself out of any job.”
“I’ll be seeing you,” said Molly.
She hung up.
Bentley had started to dial the office numbers when the screen door slammed. He looked around and the tall thin man stood just inside the kitchen.
“You’ll pardon me,” the tall man said, “but there seems to be a matter of some urgency. Some of the little folks need to use a bathroom. I wonder if you’d mind—”
“Help yourself,” said Bentley, making a thumb in the direction of the bath. “If you need it, there’s another one upstairs.”
Manning answered after a halfdozen rings.
“I got a story out here,” Bentley told him.
“Out where?”
“Joe’s place. Out where I am living.”
“Okay. Let’s have it.”
“I ain’t no reporter,” said Bentley. “I ain’t supposed to get you stories. All I do is take the pictures. This is a big story and I might make mistakes and I ain’t paid to take the heat—”
“All right,” said Manning wearily. “I’ll dig up someone to send out. But Sunday and overtime and all, it better be a good one.”
“I got a thousand people out in the backyard, coming through a funny door. They say th
ey’re from the future—”
“They say they’re from the what?” howled Manning.
“From the future. From five hundred years ahead.”
“Bentley, you’re drunk.”
“It don’t make no never mind to me,” said Bentley. “It’s ho skin off me. I told you. You do what you want.”
Re hung up and picked up a camera.
A steady stream of children, accompanied by some adults, was coming through the kitchen door.
“Lady,” he said to one of the women, “there’s another one upstairs. You better form two lines.”
2. Steve Wilson, White House press secretary, was heading for the door of his apartment and an afternoon with Judy Gray, his office secretary, when the phone rang. He retraced his steps to pick it up.
“This is Manning,” said the voice at the other end.
“What can I do for you, Tom?”
“You got your radio turned on?”
“Hell, no. Why should I have a radio turned on?”
“There’s something screwy happening,” said Manning. “You should maybe know about it. Sounds like we’re being invaded.”
“Invaded?”
“Not that kind of invasion. People walking out of nothing. Say they’re from the future.”
“Look, if this is a gag—”
“I thought so, too,” said Manning. “When Bentley first called in—”
“You mean Bentley Price, your drunken photographer?”
“That’s the one,” said Manning, “but Bentley isn’t drunk. Not this time. Too early in the day. Molly’s out there now and I have sent out others. AP is on it and—”
“Where is this all going on?”
“One place is over across the river. Not far from Falls Church.”
“One place?”
“There are others. We have it from Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis. AP just came in with a report from Denver.”
“Thanks, Tom. I owe you.”
He hung up, strode across the room and snapped on a radio.
“. . . so far known,” said the radio. “Only that people are marching out of what one observer called a hole in the landscape. Coming out five and six abreast. Like a marching army, one behind the other, a solid stream of them. This is happening in Virginia, just across the river. We have similar reports from Boston, the New York area, Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Los Angeles. As a rule, not in the cities themselves, but in the country just beyond the cities. And here is another one—Atlanta, this time.” A quiver in the deadpan voice betrayed momentary unprofessional excitement. “No one knows who they are or where they comp from or by what means they are coming. They are simply here, walking into this world of ours. Thousands of them and more coming every minute. An invasion, you might call it, but not a warlike invasion. They are coming empty-handed. They are quiet and peaceable. They’re not bothering anyone. One unconfirmed report is that they are from the future, but that, on the face of it, is impossible—”
Wilson turned the radio to a whisper, went back to the phone and dialed.
The White House switchboard answered.
“That you, Della? This is Steve. Where is the President?”
“He’s taking a nap.”
“Could you get someone to wake him? Tell him to turn on the radio. I am coming in.”
“But, Steve, what is going on? What is—”
He broke the connection, dialed another number. After a time Judy came on the line. .
“Is something wrong, Steve? I was just finishing packing the picnic basket. Don’t tell me—”
“No picnic today, sweetheart. We’re going back to work.”
“On Sunday?”
“Why not on Sunday? We have problems. I’ll be right along. Be outside, waiting for me.”
“Damn,” she said. “There goes my plan. I had planned to make you, right out in the open, on the grass under the trees.”
“I’m going to torture myself all day,” said Wilson, “thinking of what I missed.”
“All right, Steve,” she said. “I’ll be outside waiting on the curb.”
He turned up the radio. “. . . fleeing from the future. From something that happened in their future. Fleeing back to us, to this particular moment. There is, of course, no such thing as time travel, but there are all these people and they must have come from somewhere . . .”
3. Samuel J. Henderson stood at the window, looking out across the rose garden, bright in the summer sun.
Why the hell, he wondered, did everything have to happen on Sunday when everyone was scattered and it took no end of trouble to get hold of them? It had been on another Sunday that China had exploded and on still another that Chile had gone down the drain and here it was again—whatever this might be.
The intercom purred at him and, turning from the window, he went back to his desk and flipped up the key.
“The secretary of defense,” said the secretary, “is on the line.”
“Thank you, Kim,” he said.
He picked up the phone. “Jim, this is Sam. You’ve heard?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Just a moment ago. On the radio. Just a snatch of it.”
“That’s all I have, too. But there seems no doubt. We have to do something, do it fast. Get the situation under control.”
“I know. We’ll have to take care of them. Housing. Food.”
“Jim, the armed forces have to do the job. There is no one else who can move fast enough. We have to get them under shelter and keep them together. We can’t let them scatter. We have to keep some sort of control over them for a time at least. Until we know what is going on.”
“We may have to call out the guard.”
“I think,” said the President, “perhaps we should. Use every resource at your command. You have inflatable shelters. How about transportation and food?”
“We can handle things for a few days. A week, maybe. Depends upon how many of them there are. In a very short time we’ll need help. Welfare. Agriculture. Whoever can lend a hand. We’ll need a lot of. manpower and supplies.”
“You have to buy us some time,” said the President. “Until we have a chance to look at what we have. You’ll have to handle it on an emergency basis until we can settle on some plan. Don’t worry too much about procedures. If you have to bend a few of them we’ll take care of that. I’ll be talking to some of the others. Maybe we can all get together some time late this afternoon or early evening. You are the first to call in. I’ve heard from none of the others.”
“The CIA? The FBI?”
“I would imagine they both might be moving. I haven’t heard from either. I suppose they’ll be reporting in.”
“Mr. President, do you have any idea—”
“None at all. I’ll let you know as soon as possible. Once you get things moving, get in touch again. I’ll need you, Jim.”
“I’ll get on it immediately.”
“Fine, then. I’ll be seeing you.”
The intercom purred.
“Steve is here,” said the President’s secretary.
“Send him in.”
Steve Wilson came through the door.
Henderson motioned toward a chair. “Sit down, Steve. What have we got?”
“It’s spreading, sir. All over the United States and Europe. Up in Canada. A few places in South America. Russia. Singapore. Manila. Nothing yet from China or Africa. So far, no explanation. It’s fantastic, sir. Unbelievable. One is tempted to say it can’t be happening. But it is. Right in our laps.”
The President removed his glasses, placed them on the desk, pushed them back and forth with his fingertips.
“I’ve been talking with Sandburg. The army will have to get them under shelter, feed them, care for them. How’s the weather?”
“I didn’t look,” said Wilson, “but if I remember correctly from the morning broadcasts, good everywhere, except the Pacific Northwest. It’s raining there. It’s always raining there.”
�
�I tried to get State,” said the President. “But, hell, you never can get State. Williams is out at Burning Tree. I left word. Someone’s going out to get him. Why does everything always have to happen on Sunday? I suppose the press is gathering.”
“The lounge is filling up. In another hour they’ll be pounding on the door. I will have to let them in, but I can hold them for a while. By six o’clock, at the latest, they’ll expect some sort of statement.”
“Tell them we’re trying to find out. The situation is under study. You can tell them the armed services are moving rapidly to help these people. Stress the help. Not detention—help. The guard may have to be called out to do the job. That is up to Jim.”
“Maybe, sir, in another hour or two we’ll know more about it.”
“Maybe. You have any thoughts on the matter, Steve?”
The press secretary shook his head.
“Well, we’ll find out. I expect to be hearing from a lot of people. It seems incredible that we can sit here, knowing nothing.”
“You’ll probably have to go on TV, sir. The people will expect it.”
“I suppose so.”
“I’ll alert the networks.”
“I suppose I had better talk with London and Moscow. Probably Peking and Paris. We’re all in this together—we should act together. Williams, soon as he calls in, will know about that. I think I’d better phone Hugh at the U.N. See what he thinks.”
“How much of this is for the press, sir?”
“The TV, I guess. Better keep the rest quiet for the moment. You have any idea of how many of these people are invading us?”
“UPI had an estimate. Twelve thousand an hour. That’s in one place. There may be as many as a hundred places. The count’s not in.”
“For the love of God,” said the President, “a million an hour. How will the world take care of them? We have too many people now. We haven’t got the housing or the food. Why, do you suppose, are they coming here? If they are from the future they ought to have historical data. They ought to know the problems they’re creating.”
The Complete Serials Page 138