There hadn't been. There was less in the papers than he knew already. But it was a big story, and the papers played it big.
He spent most of three days at the New York U. lab, helping with further tests and examinations until there just weren't any new ones to try and darn little left to try them on. Then the government took over what was left, and Bill Wheeler was on the outside again.
For three more days he stayed home, tuned in on all news reports on the radio and video and subscribed to every newspaper published in English in New York City. But the story gradually died down. Nothing further happened; no further discoveries were made, and if any new ideas developed, they weren't given out for public consumption.
It was on the sixth day that an even bigger story broke—the assassination of the President of the United States. People forgot the spaceship.
Two days later, the Prime Minister of Great Britain was killed by a Spaniard, and the day after that a minor employee of the Politburo in Moscow ran amuck and shot a very important official.
A lot of windows broke in New York City the next day when a goodly portion of a county in Pennsylvania went up fast and came down slowly. No one within several hundred miles needed to be told that there was—or had been—a dump of A-bombs there. It was in sparsely populated country, and not many people were killed, only a few thousand.
That was the afternoon, too, that the president of the stock exchange cut his throat and the crash started. Nobody paid too much attention to the riot at Lake Success the next day because of the unidentified submarine fleet that suddenly sank practically all the shipping in New Orleans harbor.
It was the evening of that day that Bill Wheeler was pacing up and down the front room of his apartment. Occasionally he stopped at the window to pet the Siamese named Beautiful and to look out across Central Park, bright under lights and cordoned off by armed sentries, where they were pouring concrete for the antiaircraft gun emplacements.
He looked haggard.
He said, "Beautiful, we saw the start of it, right from this window. Maybe I'm crazy, but I still think that spaceship started it. God knows how. Maybe I should have fed you that mouse. Things couldn't have gone to pot so suddenly without help from somebody or something."
He shook his head slowly. "Let's dope it out, Beautiful. Let's say something came in on that ship besides a dead mouse. What could it have been? What could it have done and be doing?
"Let's say that the mouse was a laboratory animal, a guinea pig. It was sent in the ship, and it survived the journey but died when it got here. Why? I've got a screwy hunch, Beautiful."
He sat down in a chair and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. He said, "Suppose the superior intelligence—from Somewhere—that made that ship came in with it. Suppose it wasn't the mouse—let's call it a mouse. Then, since the mouse was the only physical thing in the spaceship, the being, the invader, wasn't physical. It was an entity that could live apart from whatever body it had back where it came from. But let's say it could live in any body, and it left its own in a safe place back home and rode here in one that was expendable, that it could abandon on arrival. That would explain the mouse and the fact that it died at the time the ship landed.
"Then the being, at that instant, just jumped into the body of someone here—probably one of the first people to run toward the ship when it landed. It's living in somebody's body—in a hotel on Broadway or a flophouse on the Bowery or anywhere—pretending to be a human being. That make sense, Beautiful?"
He got up and started to pace again.
"And having the ability to control other minds, it sets about to make the world—the Earth—safe for Martians or Venusians or whatever they are. It sees—after a few days of study—that the world is on the brink of destroying itself and needs only a push. So it could give that push.
"It could get inside a nut and make him assassinate the president and get caught at it. It could make a Russian shoot his Number 1. It could make a Spaniard shoot the Prime Minister of England. It could start a bloody riot in the UN, and make an army man, there to guard it, explode an A-bomb dump. It could—hell, Beautiful, it could push this world into a final war within a week. It practically has done it."
He walked over to the window and stroked the cat's sleek fur while he frowned down at the gun emplacements going up under the bright floodlights.
"And he's done it, and even if my guess is right I couldn't stop him because I couldn't find him. And nobody would believe me now. He'll make the world safe for Martians. When the war is over, a lot of little ships like that—or big ones—can land here and take over what's left ten times as easy as they could now."
He lighted a cigarette with hands that shook a little. He said, "The more I think of it, the more—"
He sat down in the chair again. He said, "Beautiful, I've got to try. Screwy as that idea is, I've got to give it to the authorities, whether they believe it or not. That Major I met was an intelligent guy. So is General Keely. I—"
He started to walk to the phone and then sat down again. "I'll call both of them, but let's work it out just a little finer first. See if I can make any intelligent suggestions how they could go about finding the—the being—"
He groaned. "Beautiful, it's impossible. It wouldn't even have to be a human being. It could be an animal, anything. It could be you. He'd probably take over whatever nearby type of mind was nearest his own. If he was remotely feline, you'd have been the nearest cat."
He sat up and stared at her. He said, "I'm going crazy, Beautiful. I'm remembering how you jumped and twisted just after that spaceship blew up its mechanism and went inert. And, listen, Beautiful, you've been sleeping twice as much as usual lately. Has your mind been out—
"Say, that would be why I couldn't wake you up yesterday to feed you. Beautiful, cats always wake up easily. Cats do."
Looking dazed, Bill Wheeler got up out of the chair. He said, "Cat, am I crazy, or—"
The Siamese cat looked at him languidly through sleepy eyes. Distinctly it said, "Forget it."
And halfway between sitting and rising, Bill Wheeler looked even more dazed for a second. He shook his head as though to clear it.
He said, "What was I talking about, Beautiful? I'm getting punchy from not enough sleep."
He walked over to the window and stared out, gloomily, rubbing the cat's fur until it purred.
He said, "Hungry, Beautiful? Want some liver?"
The cat jumped down from the windowsill and rubbed itself against his leg affectionately.
It said, "Miaouw."
The End
© 1949, by Standard Magazines, Inc. Originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories. Copyright 1977 by the Estate. Used by permission.
Come On, Wagon
Zenna Henderson
I don't like kids—never have. They're too uncanny. For one thing, there's no bottom to their eyes. They haven't learned to pull down their mental curtains the way adults have. For another thing, there's so much they don't know. And not knowing things makes them know lots of other things grown-ups can't know. That sounds confusing, and it is. But look at it this way. Every time you teach a kid something, you teach him a hundred things that are impossible because that one thing is so. By the time we grow up, our world is so hedged around by impossibilities that it's a wonder we ever try anything new.
Anyway, I don't like kids, so I guess it's just as well that I've stayed a bachelor.
Now, take Thaddeus. I don't like Thaddeus. Oh, he's a fine kid, smarter than most—he's my nephew—but he's too young. I'll start liking him one of these days when he's ten or eleven. No, that's still too young. I guess when his voice starts cracking and he begins to slick his hair down, I'll get to liking him fine. Adolescence ends lots more than it begins.
The first time I ever really got acquainted with Thaddeus was the Christmas he was three. He was a solemn little fellow, hardly a smile out of him all day, even with the avalanche of everything to thrill a kid. Starting first th
ing Christmas Day, he made me feel uneasy. He stood still in the middle of the excited squealing bunch of kids that crowded around the Christmas tree in the front room at the folks' place. He was holding a big rubber ball with both hands and looking at the tree with his eyes wide with wonder. I was sitting right by him in the big chair, and I said, "How do you like it, Thaddeus?"
He turned his big, solemn eyes to me, and for a long time, all I could see was the deep, deep reflections in his eyes of the glitter and glory of the tree and a special shiningness that originated far back in his own eyes. Then he blinked slowly and said solemnly, "Fine."
Then the mob of kids swept him away as they all charged forward to claim their Grampa-gift from under the tree. When the crowd finally dissolved and scattered all over the place with their play-toys, there was Thaddeus squatting solemnly by the little red wagon that had fallen to him. He was examining it intently, inch by inch, but only with his eyes. His hands were pressed between his knees and his chest as he squatted.
"Well, Thaddeus." His mother's voice was a little provoked. "Go play with your wagon. Don't you like it?"
Thaddeus turned his face up to her in that blind, unseeing way little children have.
"Sure," he said, and standing up, tried to take the wagon in his arms.
"Oh for pity sakes," his mother laughed. "You don't carry a wagon, Thaddeus." And aside to us, "Sometimes I wonder. Do you suppose he's got all his buttons?"
"Now, Jean." Our brother Clyde leaned back in his chair. "Don't heckle the kid. Go on, Thaddeus. Take the wagon outside."
So what does Thaddeus do but start for the door, saying over his shoulder, "Come on, Wagon."
Clyde laughed. "It's not that easy, Punkin-Yaller, you've gotta have pull to get along in this world."
So Jean showed Thaddeus how, and he pulled the wagon outdoors, looking down at the handle in a puzzled way, absorbing this latest rule for acting like a big boy.
Jean was embarrassed the way parents are when their kids act normal around other people.
"Honest. You'd think he never saw a wagon before."
"He never did," I said idly. "Not his own, anyway." And had the feeling that I had said something profound, but wasn't quite sure what.
The whole deal would have gone completely out of my mind it if hadn't been for one more little incident. I was out by the barn waiting for Dad. Mom was making him change his pants before he demonstrated his new tractor for me. I saw Thaddeus loading rocks into his little red wagon. Beyond the rock pile, I could see that he had started a playhouse or ranch of some kind, laying the rocks out to make rooms or corrals or whatever. He finished loading the wagon and picked up another rock that took both arms to carry, then he looked down at the wagon.
"Come on, Wagon." And he walked over to his play place.
And the wagon went with him, trundling along over the uneven ground, following at his heels like a puppy.
I blinked and inventoried rapidly the Christmas cheer I had imbibed. It wasn't enough for an explanation. I felt a kind of cold grue creep over me.
Then Thaddeus emptied the wagon and the two of them went back for more rocks. He was just going to pull the same thing again when a big boy-cousin came by and laughed at him.
"Hey, Thaddeus, how you going to pull your wagon with both hands full? It won't go unless you pull it."
"Oh," said Thaddeus and looked off after the cousin who was headed for the back porch and some pie.
So Thaddeus dropped the big rock he had in his arms and looked at the wagon. After struggling with some profound thinking, he picked the rock up again and hooked a little finger over the handle of the wagon.
"Come on, Wagon," he said, and they trundled off together, the handle of the wagon still slanting back over the load while Thaddeus grunted along by it with his heavy armload.
I was glad Dad came just then, hooking the last strap of his striped overalls. We started into the barn together. I looked back at Thaddeus. He apparently figured he'd need his little finger on the next load, so he was squatting by the wagon, absorbed with a piece of flimsy red Christmas string. He had twisted one end around his wrist and was intent on tying the other to the handle of the little red wagon.
It wasn't so much that I avoided Thaddeus after that. It isn't hard for grown-ups to keep from mingling with kids. After all, they do live in two different worlds. Anyway, I didn't have much to do with Thaddeus for several years after that Christmas. There was the matter of a side trip to the South Pacific where even I learned that there are some grown-up impossibilities that are not always absolute. Then there was a hitch in the hospital where I waited for my legs to put themselves together again. I was luckier than most of the guys. The folks wrote often and regularly and kept me posted on all the home talk. Nothing spectacular, nothing special, just the old familiar stuff that makes home, home and folks, folks.
I hadn't thought of Thaddeus in a long time. I hadn't been around kids much, and unless you deal with them, you soon forget them. But I remembered him plenty when I got the letter from Dad about Jean's new baby. The kid was a couple of weeks overdue and when it did come—a girl—Jean's husband, Bert, was out at the farm checking with Dad on a land deal he had cooking. The baby came so quickly that Jean couldn't even make it to the hospital, and when Mom called Bert, he and Dad headed for town together, but fast.
"Derned if I didn't have to hold my hair on," wrote Dad. "I don't think we hit the ground but twice all the way to town. Dern near overshot the gate when we finally tore up the hill to their house. Thaddeus was playing out front, and we dang near ran him down. Smashed his trike to flinders. I saw the handle bars sticking out from under the front wheel when I followed Bert in. Then I got to thinking that he'd get a flat parking on all that metal, so I went out to move the car. Lucky I did. Bert musta forgot to set the brakes. Derned if that car wasn't headed straight for Thaddeus. He was walking right in front of it. Even had his hand on the bumper, and the dern thing rolling right after him. I yelled and hit out for the car. But by the time I got there, it had stopped, and Thaddeus was squatting by his wrecked trike. What do you suppose the little cuss said? 'Old car broke my trike. I made him get off.'
"Can you beat it? Kids get the dernedest ideas. Lucky it wasn't much downhill, though. He'd have been hurt sure."
I lay with the letter on my chest and felt cold. Dad had forgotten that they "tore up the hill" and that the car must have rolled up the slope to get off Thaddeus' trike.
That night I woke up the ward yelling, "Come on, Wagon!"
It was some months later when I saw Thaddeus again. He and half a dozen other nephews—and the one persistent niece—were in a tearing hurry to be somewhere else and nearly mobbed Dad and me on the front porch as they boiled out of the house with mouths and hands full of cookies. They all stopped long enough to give me the once-over and fire a machine-gun volley with my crutches, then they disappeared down the land on their bikes, heads low, rear ends high, and every one of them being bombers at the tops of their voices.
I only had time enough to notice that Thaddeus had lanked out and was just one of the kids as he grinned engagingly at me with the two-tooth gap in his front teeth.
"Did you ever notice anything odd about Thaddeus?" I pulled out the makin's.
"Thaddeus?" Dad glanced up at me from firing up his battered old corncob pipe. "Not particularly. Why?"
"Oh, nothing." I ran my tongue along the paper and rolled the cigarette shut. "He just always seemed kinda different."
"Well, he's always been kinda slow about some things. Not that he's dumb. Once he catches on, he's as smart as anyone, but he's sure pulled some funny ones."
"Give me a fer-instance," I said, wondering if he'd remember the trike deal.
"Well, coupla years ago at a wienie roast he was toting something around wrapped in a paper napkin. Jean saw him put it in his pocket and she thought it was probably a dead frog or a beetle or something like that, so she made him fork it over. She unfolded the napkin and d
erned if there wasn't a big live coal in it. Dern thing flamed right up in her hand. Thaddeus bellered like a bull calf. Said he wanted to take it home cause it was pretty. How he ever carried it around that long without setting himself afire is what got me."
"That's Thaddeus," I said. "Odd."
"Yeah." Dad was firing his pipe again, flicking the burned match down to join the dozen or so others by the porch railing. "I guess you might call him odd. But he'll outgrow it. He hasn't pulled anything like that in a long time."
"They do outgrow it," I said. "Thank God." And I think it was a real prayer. I don't like kids. "By the way, where's Clyde?"
"Down in the East Pasture, plowing. Say, that tractor I got that last Christmas you were here is a bear cat. It's lasted me all this time and I've never had to do a lick of work on it. Clyde's using it today."
"When you get a good tractor you got a good one," I said. "Guess I'll go down and see the old son of a gun—Clyde, I mean. Haven't seen him in a coon's age." I gathered up my crutches.
Dad scrambled to his feet. "Better let me run you down in the pickup. I've gotta go over to Jesperson's anyway."
"Okay," I said. "Won't be long till I can throw these things away." So we piled in the pickup and headed for the East Pasture.
We were ambushed at the pump corner by the kids and were killed variously by P-38s, atomic bombs, ack-ack, and the Lone Ranger's six-guns. Then we lowered our hands which had been raised all this time, and Dad reached out and collared the nearest nephew.
"Come along, Punkin-Yaller. That blasted Holstein has busted out again. You get her out of the alfalfa and see if you can find where she got through this time."
"Aw, gee whiz!" The kid—and of course it was Thaddeus—climbed into the back of the pickup. "That dern cow."
We started up with a jerk, and I turned half around in the seat to look at Thaddeus.
"Remember your little red wagon?" I yelled over the clatter.
"Red wagon?" Thaddeus yelled back. His face lighted. "Red wagon?"
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Page 38