“I say,” Stockstill said, “that if it is it’s a tragedy.”
In the rear of the room, Bruno Bluthgeld rose to his feet and said in a loud, husky voice, “The demolition of existence has begun. Everyone present will be spared by special consideration long enough to confess sins and repent if it is sincere.”
The room fell silent. The people, one by one, turned in his direction.
“You have a preacher, here?” the Negro said to Stockstill.
To Gill, Stockstill said rapidly, “He’s sick, Andy. We’ve got to get him out of here. Give me a hand.”
“Sure,” Gill said, following him; they walked toward Bluthgeld, who was still on his feet.
“The high-altitude bombs which I set off in 1972,” Bluthgeld was declaring, “find reinforcement in the present act, sanctioned by God Himself in His wisdom for the world. See the Book of Revelations for verification.” He watched Stockstill and Gill approach. “Have you cleansed yourself?” he asked them. “Are you prepared for the judgment which is to come?”
All at once, from the speaker of the radio, came a f amiliar voice; it was shaky and muted, but they all recognized it. “Sorry for the pause, folks,” Dangerfield said. “But I sure felt giddy there for a while; I had to lie down and I didn’t notice the tape had ended. Anyhow—” He laughed his old, familiar laugh. “I’m back. At least for a while. Now, what was I about to do? Does anybody remember? Wait, I’ve got a red light on; somebody’s calling me from below. Hold on.”
The people in the room buzzed with joy and relief; they turned back to the radio, and Bluthgeld was forgotten. Stockstill himself walked toward the radio, and so did Gill and the Negro TV salesman; they joined the circle of smiling people and stood waiting.
“I’ve got a request for ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ “ Dangerfield said. “Can you beat that? Anybody remember the Andrews Sisters? Well, the good old U.S. Government had the kindness to provide me with, believe it or not, a tape of the Andrews Sisters singing this corny but well-loved number… I guess they figured I was going to be some sort of time capsule on Mars, there.” He chuckled. “So it’s ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ for some old codger in the Great Lakes Area. Here we go.” The music, tinny and archaic, began, and the people in the room gratefully, joyfully, moved one by one back to their seats.
Standing by his chair rigidly, Bruno Bluthgeld listened to the music and thought, I can’t believe it. The man up there is gone; I myself caused him to be destroyed. This must be a fake of some kind. A deception. I know that it is not real.
In any case, he realized, I must exert myself more fully; I must begin again and this time with utmost force. No one was paying attention to him—they had all turned their attention back to the radio—so he left his chair and made his way quietly from the Hall, outside into the darkness.
Down the road the tall antenna at Hoppy Harrington’s house glowed and pulsed and hummed; Bruno Bluthgeld, puzzled, noted it as he walked along toward his horse, where he had left the beast tied up. What was the phocomelus doing? Lights blazed behind the windows of the tarpaper house; Hoppy was busy at work.
I must include him, too, Bluthgeld said to himself. He must cease to exist along with the others, for he is as evil as they are. Perhaps more so.
As he passed Hoppy’s house he sent a stray, momentary thought of destruction of Hoppy’s direction. The lights, however, remained on and the antenna mast continued to hum. It will take more mind-force, Bluthgeld realized, and I don’t have the time right now. A little later.
Meditating profoundly, he continued on.
XIII
Bill Keller heard the small animal, the snail or slug, near him and at once he got into it. But he been tricked; it was sightless. He was out but he could not see or hear, he could only move.
“Let me back,” he called to his sister in panic. “Look what you did, you put me into something wrong.” You did it on purpose, he said to himself as he moved. He moved on and on, searching for her.
If I could reach out, he thought. Reach—upward. But he had nothing to reach with, no limbs of any sort. What am I now that I’m finally out? he asked himself as he tried to reach up. What do they call those things up there that shine? Those lights in the sky… can I see them without having eyes? No, he thought, I can’t.
He moved on, raising himself now and then as high as possible and then sinking back, once more to crawl, to do the one thing possible for him in his new life, his born, outside life.
In the sky, Walt Dangerfield moved, in his satellite, although he was resting with his head in his hands. The pain inside him grew, changed, absorbed him until, as before, he could imagine nothing else.
And then he thought he saw something. Beyond the window of the satellite—a flash far off, along the rim of the Earth’s darker edge. What was that? he asked himself. An explosion, like the ones he had seen and cringed from seven years ago – . . the flares ignited over the surface of the Earth. Were they beginning again?
On his feet he stood peering out, hardly breathing. Seconds passed and there were no further explosions. And the one he had seen; it had been peculiarly vague and shadowy, with a diffuseness that had made it seem somehow unreal, as if it was only imagined.
As if, he thought, it was more a recollection of a fact than the fact itself. It must be some sort of sidereal echo, he concluded. A remnant left over from E Day, still reverberating in space somehow… but harmless, now. More so all the time.
And yet it frightened him. Like the pain inside him, it was too odd to be dismissed; it seemed to be dangerous and he could not forget it.
I feel ill, he repeated to himself, resuming his litany based on his great discomfort. Can’t they get me down? Do I have to stay up here, creeping across the sky again and again—forever?
For his own needs he put on a tape of the Bach B Minor Mass; the giant choral sound filled the satellite and made him forget. The pain inside, the dull, elderly explosion briefly outlined beyond the window—both began to leave his mind.
“Kyrie eleison,” he murmured to himself. Greek words, embedded in the Latin text; strange. Remnants of the past… still alive, at least for him. I’ll play the B Minor Mass for the New York area, he decided. I think they’ll like it; a lot of intellectuals, there. Why should I only play what they request anyhow? I ought to be teaching them, not following. And especially, he thought, if I’m not going to be around much longer… I better get going and do an especially bang-up job, here at the end.
All at once his vehicle shuddered. Staggering, he caught hold of the wall nearest him; a concussion, series of shock waves, passing through. Objects fell and collided and burst; he looked around amazed.
Meteor? he wondered.
It seemed to him almost as if someone were attacking him.
He shut off the B Minor Mass and stood, listening and waiting. Far off through the window he saw another dull explosion and he thought, they may get me. But why? It won’t be long anyhow before I’m finished… why not wait? And then the thought came to him, But damn it, I’m alive now, and I better act alive; I’m not utterly dead yet.
He snapped on his transmitter and said into the mike, “Sorry for the pause, folks. But I sure felt giddy there for a while; I had to lie down and I didn’t notice the tape had ended. Anyhow—”
Laughing his laugh, he watched through the window of the satellite for more of the strange explosions. There was one, faint and farther off… he felt a measure of relief. Maybe they wouldn’t get him after all; they seemed to be losing track of the range, as if his location were a mystery to them.
I’ll play the corniest record I can think of, he decided, as an act of defiance. “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon”; that ought to do it. Whistling in the dark, as they say, and he laughed again, thinking about it; what an act of defiance it was, by God. It would certainly come as a surprise to whoever was trying to eradicate him—if that was in fact what they wanted to do.
Maybe they’re just plain tired of my corny talk an
d my corny readings, Dangerfield conjectured. Well, if so—this will fix them.
“I’m back,” he said into his mike. “At least for a while. Now, what was I about to do? Does anybody remember?”
There were no more concussions. He had a feeling that, for the time being, they had ceased.
“Wait,” he said, “I’ve got a red light on; somebody’s calling me from below. Hold on.”
From his tape library he selected the proper tape, carried it to the transport and placed it on the spindle.
“I’ve got a request for ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ “ he said, with grim relish, thinking of their dismay down below. “Can you beat that?” No, you can’t, he said to himself. And—by the Andrews Sisters. Dangerfield is striking back. Grinning, he started the tape into motion.
Edie Keller, with a delicious shiver of exultation, watched the angle worm crawling slowly across the ground and new with certitude that her brother was in it.
For inside her, down in her abdomen, the mentality of the worm now resided; she heard its monotonous voice. “Boom, boom, boom,” it went, in echo of its nondescript biological processes.
“Get out of me, worm,” she said, and giggled. What did the worm think about its new existence? Was it as dumbfounded as Bill probably was? I have to keep my eye on him, she realized, meaning the creature wriggling across the ground. For he might get lost. “Bill,” she said, bending over him, “you look funny. You’re all red and long; did you know that?” And then she thought, What I should have done was put him in the body of another human being. Why didn’t I do that? Then it would be like it ought to be; I would have a real brother, outside of me, who I could play with.
But, on the other hand, she would have a strange, new person inside her. And that did not sound like much fun.
Who would do? she asked herself. One of the kids at school? An adult? I bet Bill would like to be in an adult. Mr. Barnes, maybe. Or Hoppy Harrington, who was afraid of Bill anyhow. Or—she screeched with delight, Mama. It would be so easy; I could snuggle up close to her, lay against her… and Bill could switch, and I’d have my own mama inside me—and wouldn’t that be wonderful? I could make her do anything I wanted. And she couldn’t tell me what to do.
And Edie thought, She couldn’t do any more unmentionable things with Mr. Barnes any more, or with anybody else. I’d see to that. I know Bill wouldn’t behave that way; he was as shocked as I was.
“Bill,” she said, kneeling down and carefully picking up the angleworm; she held it in the palm of her hand. “Wait until you hear my plan—you know what? We’re going to fix Mama for the bad things she does.” She held the worm against her side, where the hard lump within lay. “Get back inside now. You don’t want to be a worm anyhow; it’s no fun.”
Her brother’s voice once more came to her. “You pooh-pooh; I hate you, I’ll never forgive you. You put me in a blind thing with no legs or nothing; all I could do was drag myself around!”
“I know,” she said, rocking back and forth, cupping the now-useless worm in her hand still. “Listen, did you hear me? You want to do that, Bill, what I said? Shall I get Mama to let me lie against her so you can do you-knowwhat? You’d have eyes and ears; you’d be a full-grown person.”
Nervously, Bill said, “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to walk around being Mama; it sort of scares me.”
“Sissy,” Edie said. “You better do it or you may never get out ever again. Well, who do you want to be if not Mama? Tell me and I’ll fix it up; I cross my heart and promise to fall down black and hard.”
“I’ll see,” Bill said. “I’ll talk to the dead people and see what they say about it. Anyhow I don’t know if it’ll work; I had trouble getting out into that little thing, that worm.”
“You’re afraid to try,” she laughed; she tossed the worm away, into the bushes at the end of the school grounds. “Sissy! My brother is a big baby sissy!”
There was no answer from Bill; he had turned his thoughts away from her and her world, into the regions which only he could reach. Talking to those old crummy, sticky dead, Edie said to herself. Those empty pooh-pooh dead that never have, any fun or nothing.
And then a really stunning idea came to her. I’ll fix it so he gets out and into that crazy man Mr. Tree who they’re all talking about right now, she decided. Mr. Tree stood up in the Foresters’ Hall last night and said those dumb religious things about repenting, and so if Bill acts funny and doesn’t know what to do or say, nobody will pay any attention.
Yet, that posed the awful problem of her finding herself containing a crazy man. Maybe I could take poison like I’m always saying, she decided. I could swallow a lot of oleander leaves or castor beans or something and get rid of him; he’d be helpless, he couldn’t stop me.
Still, it was a problem; she did not relish the idea of having that Mr. Tree-she had seen him often enough not to like him—inside herself. He had a nice dog, and that was about all…
Terry, the dog. That was it. She could lie down against Terry and Bill could get out and into the dog and everything would be fine.
But dogs had a short life. And Terry was already seven years old; according to her mother and father. He had been born the same time almost as she and Bill.
Darn it, she thought. It’s hard to decide; it’s a real problem, what to do with Bill who wants so bad to get out and see and hear things. And then she thought, Who of all the people I know would I like most to have living inside my stomach? And the answer was: her father.
“You want to walk around as Daddy?” she asked Bill. But Bill did not answer; he was still turned away, conversing with the great majority beneath the ground.
I think, she decided, that Mr. Tree would be the best because he lives out in the country with sheep and doesn’t see too many people, and it would be easier on Bill that way because he wouldn’t have to know very much about talking. He’d just have Terry out there and all the sheep, and then with Mr. Tree being crazy now it’s really perfect. Bill could do a lot better with Mr. Tree’s body than Mr. Tree is doing, I bet, and all I have to worry about really is chewing the right number of poisonous oleander leaves—enough to kill him but not me. Maybe two would do. Three at the most, I guess.
Mr. Tree went crazy at the perfect time, she decided. He doesn’t know it, though. But wait’ll he finds out; won’t he be surprised. I might let him live for a while inside me, just so he’d realize what happened; I think that would be fun. I never liked him, even though Mama does, or says she does. He’s creepy. Edie shuddered.
Poor, poor Mr. Tree, she thought delightedly. You aren’t going to ruin any more meetings at the Foresters’ Hall because where you’ll be you won’t be able to preach to anybody, except maybe to me and I won’t listen.
Where can I do it? she asked herself. Today; I’ll ask Mama to take us out there after school. And if she won’t do it, I’ll hike out there by myself.
I can hardly wait, Edie said to herself, shivering with anticipation.
The bell for class rang, and, together with the other children, she started into the building. Mr. Barnes was waiting at the ‘door of the single classroom which served all the children from first grade to sixth; as she passed him, deep in thought, he said to her, “Why so absorbed; Edie? What’s on your weighty mind today?”
“Well,” she said, halting, “you were for a while. Now it’s Mr. Tree instead.”
“Oh yes,” Mr. Barnes said, nodding. “So you heard about that.”
The other children had passed on in, leaving them alone. So Edie said, “Mr. Barnes, don’t you think you ought to stop doing what you’re doing with my mama? It’s wrong; Bill says so and he knows.”
The school teacher’s face changed color, but he did not speak. Instead he walked away from her, into the room and up to his desk, still darkly flushed. Did I say it wrong? Edie wondered. Is he mad at me now? Maybe he’ll make me stay after, for punishment, and maybe he’ll tell Mama and she’ll spank me.
Feeling disco
uraged, she seated herself and opened the precious, ragged, fragile, coverless book to the story of Snow White; it was their reading assignment for the day.
Lying in the damp rotting leaves beneath the old live oak trees, in the shadows, Bonny Keller clasped Mr. Barnes to her and thought to herself that this was probably the last time; she was tired of it and Hal was scared, and that, she had learned from long experience, was a fatal combination.
“All right,” she murmured, “so she knows. But she knows on a small child’s level; she has no real understanding.”
“She knows it’s wrong,” Barnes answered.
Bonny sighed.
“Where is she now?” Barnes asked.
“Behind that by tree over there. Watching.”
Hal Barnes sprang to his feet as if stabbed; he whirled around, wide-eyed, then sagged as he comprehended the truth. “You and your malicious wit,” he muttered. But he did not return to her; he stayed on his feet, a short distance off, looking glum and uneasy. “Where is she really?”
“She hiked out to Jack Tree’s sheep ranch.”
“But—” He gestured. “The man’s insane! Won’t he be– well, isn’t it dangerous?”
“She just went out to play with Terry, the verbose canine.” Bonny sat up and began picking bits of humus from her hair. “I don’t think he’s even there. The last time anybody saw Bruno, he—”
“‘Bruno,’” Barnes echoed. He regarded her queerly.
“I mean Jack.” Her heart labored.
“He said the other night something about having been responsible for the high-altitude devices in 1972.” Barnes continued to scrutinize her; she waited, her pulse throbbing in her throat. Well, it was bound to come out sooner or later.
“He’s insane,” she ‘pointed out. “Right? He believes—”
Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along after the Bomb Page 20