by Howard Fast
Lieberman closed the cupboard doors. “All in five days,” he shrugged.
“A new race of ants,” I whispered stupidly.
“No. They’re not ants. Come here!” He motioned me to the desk and the other two joined me. Lieberman took a set of dissecting instruments out of his drawer, used one to turn the thing over and then pointed to the underpart of what would be the thorax in an insect.
“That looks like part of him, doesn’t it, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes, it does.”
Using two of the tools, he found a fissure and pried the bottom apart. It came open like the belly of a bomber; it was a pocket, a pouch, a receptacle that the thing wore, and in it were four beautiful little tools or instruments or weapons, each about an inch and a half long. They were beautiful the way any object of functional purpose and loving creation is beautiful—the way the creature itself would have been beautiful, had it not been an insect and myself a man. Using tweezers, Lieberman took each instrument off the brackets that held it, offering each to me. And I took each one, felt it, examined it, and then put it down.
I had to look at the ant now, and I realized that I had not truly looked at it before. We don’t look carefully at a thing that is horrible or repugnant to us. You can’t look at anything through a screen of hatred. But now the hatred and the fear was dilute, and as I looked, I realized it was not an ant although like an ant. It was nothing that I had ever seen or dreamed of.
All three men were watching me, and suddenly I was on the defensive. “I didn’t know! What do you expect when you see an insect that size?”
Lieberman nodded.
“What in the name of God is it?”
From his desk, Lieberman produced a bottle and four small glasses. He poured and we drank it neat. I would not have expected him to keep good Scotch in his desk.
“We don’t know,” Hopper said. “We don’t know what it is.”
Lieberman pointed to the broken skull from which a white substance oozed. “Brain material—a great deal of it.”
“It could be a very intelligent creature,” Hopper nodded.
Lieberman said, “It is an insect in developmental structure. We know very little about intelligence in our insects. It’s not the same as what we call intelligence. It’s a collective phenomenon—as if you were to think of the component parts of our bodies. Each part is alive, but the intelligence is a result of the whole. If that same pattern were to extend to creatures like this one—”
I broke the silence. They were content to stand there and stare at it.
“Suppose it were?”
“What?”
“The kind of collective intelligence you were talking about.”
“Oh? Well, I couldn’t say. It would be something beyond our wildest dreams. To us—well, what we are to an ordinary ant.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said shortly, and Fitzgerald, the government man, told me quietly, “Neither do we. We guess.”
“If it’s that intelligent, why didn’t it use one of those weapons on me?”
“Would that be a mark of intelligence?” Hopper asked mildly.
“Perhaps none of these are weapons,” Lieberman said.
“Don’t you know? Didn’t the others carry instruments?”
“They did,” Fitzgerald said shortly.
“Why? What were they?”
“We don’t know,” Lieberman said.
“But you can find out. We have scientists, engineers—good God, this is an age of fantastic instruments. Have them taken apart!”
“We have.”
“Then what have you found out?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “that you can find out nothing about these instruments—what they are, how they work, what their purpose is?”
“Exactly,” Hopper nodded. “Nothing, Mr. Morgan. They are meaningless to the finest engineers and technicians in the United States. You know the old story—suppose you gave a radio to Aristotle? What would he do with it? Where would he find power? And what would he receive with no one to send? It is not that these instruments are complex. They are actually very simple. We simply have no idea of what they can or should do.”
“But they must be a weapon of some kind.”
“Why?” Lieberman demanded. “Look at yourself, Mr. Morgan—a cultured and intelligent man, yet you cannot conceive of a mentality that does not include weapons as a prime necessity. Yet a weapon is an unusual thing, Mr. Morgan. An instrument of murder. We don’t think that way, because the weapon has become the symbol of the world we inhabit. Is that civilized, Mr. Morgan? Or is the weapon and civilization in the ultimate sense incompatible? Can you imagine a mentality to which the concept of murder is impossible—or let me say absent. We see everything through our own subjectivity. Why shouldn’t some other—this creature, for example—see the process of mentation out of his subjectivity? So he approaches a creature of our world—and he is slain. Why? What explanation? Tell me, Mr. Morgan, what conceivable explanation could we offer a wholly rational creature for this—” pointing to the thing on his desk. “I am asking you the question most seriously. What explanation?”
“An accident?” I muttered.
“And the eight jars in my cupboard? Eight accidents?”
“I think, Dr. Lieberman,” Fitzgerald said, “that you can go a little too far in that direction.”
“Yes, you would think so. It’s a part of your own background. Mine is as a scientist. As a scientist, I try to be rational when I can. The creation of a structure of good and evil, or what we call morality and ethics, is a function of intelligence—and unquestionably the ultimate evil may be the destruction of conscious intelligence. That is why, so long ago, we at least recognized the injunction, ‘thou shalt not kill!’ even if we never gave more than lips service to it. But to a collective intelligence, such as this might be a part of, the concept of murder would be monstrous beyond the power of thought.”
I sat down and lit a cigarette. My hands were trembling. Hopper apologized. “We have been rather rough with you, Mr. Morgan. But over the past days, eight other people have done just what you did. We are caught in the trap of being what we are.”
“But tell me—where do these things come from?”
“It almost doesn’t matter where they come from,” Hopper said hopelessly. “Perhaps from another planet—perhaps from inside this one—or the moon or Mars. That doesn’t matter. Fitzgerald thinks they come from a smaller planet, because their movements are apparently slow on earth. But Dr. Lieberman thinks that they move slowly because they have not discovered the need to move quickly. Meanwhile, they have the problem of murder and what to do with it. Heaven knows how many of them have died in other places—Africa, Asia, Europe.”
“Then why don’t you publicize this? Put a stop to it before it’s too late!”
“We’ve thought of that,” Fitzgerald nodded. “What then—panic, hysteria, charges that this is the result of the atom bomb? We can’t change. We are what we are.”
“They may go away,” I said.
“Yes, they may,” Lieberman nodded. “But if they are without the curse of murder, they may also be without the curse of fear. They may be social in the highest sense. What does society do with a murderer?”
“There are societies that put him to death—and there are other societies that recognize his sickness and lock him away, where he can kill no more,” Hopper said. “Of course, when a whole world is on trial, that’s another matter. We have atom bombs now and other things, and we are reaching out to the stars—”
“I’m inclined to think that they’ll run,” Fitzgerald put in. “They may just have that curse of fear, Doctor.”
“They may,” Lieberman admitted. “I hope so.”
But the more I think of it the more it seems to me that fear and hatred are the two sides of the same coin. I keep trying to think back, to recreate the moment when I saw it standing at the foot of my bed in the fis
hing shack. I keep trying to drag out of my memory a clear picture of what it looked like, whether behind that chitinous face and the two gently waving antennae there was any evidence of fear and anger. But the clearer the memory becomes, the more I seem to recall a certain wonderful dignity and repose. Not fear and not anger.
And more and more, as I go about my work, I get the feeling of what Hopper called “a world on trial.” I have no sense of anger myself. Like a criminal who can no longer live with himself, I am content to be judged.
At least, if it makes no sense at all, it explains about the cats. There was a note in the Times today about the pound; they have put away four times the average number of cats, and it keeps getting worse. It will continue to get worse and worse, no doubt, but cats are not as bad as some things.
To explain it, after I had convinced myself that I was in my right mind, I telephoned my wife. Some say that there is actually no way of convincing yourself that you are in your right mind, but I don’t go along with that. At least I was as sane as I was a week before.
“Where are you?” my wife demanded. “Why are you telephoning—why don’t you come up?”
“Because I am downtown at the Waldorf.”
“Oh no—no. You are downstairs where I left you less than three minutes ago.”
“That is not me—not myself, do you understand?”
“No.”
I waited a while, and she waited too. Finally, I said, “No, I guess you don’t.”
“I also saw you dodge around the corner of 63rd Street,” she added. “Were you playing games?”
“Well—”
“Yes?”
“That wasn’t me either. Do you think I’m out of my mind? I mean, do you think I’ve had a breakdown or something like that?”
“No,” my wife said. “You’re not the breakdown type.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I’m reserving opinions,” my wife said.
“Thank you. I still love you. When you saw me downstairs a few minutes ago, what was I wearing?”
“Don’t you know?” She seemed shaken for the first time.
“I know. But I want you to tell me. Is that asking so much? Just tell me.”
“All right. I’ll tell you. The gray herringbone.”
“Ah,” I said. “Now I will hold the wire, and you go to my closet and tell me what you see there.”
“You’re not drunk. I’ve seen you drunk, and you don’t act this way. I will not go to the closet. You come home and we’ll decide whether to call a doctor or not.”
“Please,” I begged her. “Please. I am asking a small thing. We have been married twelve years. It has been give and take, the best with the worst. But we came through. Now all I am asking is that you go—”
“All right,” she said shortly. “I’ll humor you. I will go to your closet. Just hold on.”
I waited while she went and returned. She picked up the phone again, but said nothing.
“Well?”
She sighed and admitted that she had gone to the closet.
“And you saw it there?”
“Your gray suit?”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Gray herringbone. My one gray suit. I have brown, blue and Oxford. I have two sport jackets and three pairs of flannel trousers. But only one gray suit—gray herringbone. Right?”
“Gray herringbone,” she said weakly. “But maybe you bought another?”
“Why?”
“How should I know why? You like gray herringbone, I suppose.”
“No, I didn’t buy another. I give you my word of honor. Alice, I love you. We have been married twelve years. I’m a solid character as such things go. Not flighty. Not even romantic, as you have remarked.”
“You are romantic enough,” she said flatly.
“You know what I mean. I did not buy another gray suit. It is the same gray suit.”
“In two places at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?”
There was a long, long pause then, until finally I said, “Now will you do as I say, even if it makes no sense?”
She paused and sighed again. “Yes.”
“Good. It is now two-fifteen. Shortly before three o’clock, Professor Dunbar will call and tell you some rubbish about his cat and then ask for me. Tell him to go to hell. Then get a cab down here to the Waldorf. I’m in Room 1121.”
“Bob,” she said uncertainly, “just that way—go to hell? He is the head of your department.”
“Well, not in so many words. Do it your own way. Then come straight here. Yes—one thing more. If you see me anywhere, ignore me. Do you understand—no matter what. Ignore me. Don’t talk to me.”
“Oh? Yes—of course. If I see you anywhere, I ignore you. And if I see you, you’ll be wearing the gray herringbone?”
“Yes,” I said. “And will you do as I say?”
“Oh, yes—yes. Of course.”
And strangely enough, she did. There are wives and wives; I like mine. I sat in that room (the least expensive, eight dollars a day) and waited and tried to think about something no one should ever have to think about, and at exactly 3:20, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it, and there was Alice. She was a little pale, a little shaken, but still very nice to look at and standing and walking on her own feet.
I kissed her, and she returned the kiss, but told me it was only because I had the blue suit on. Not a chance with the gray suit, she said; and then asked me seriously whether we could be dreaming?
“Not both of us,” I said. “Either you or me. But this isn’t a dream. Why do you ask? Did you see me?”
She nodded. “Let me sit down first.” She sat down and looked at me with a curious smile on her face.
“You did see me?” I asked.
“Oh, yes—yes, I saw you.”
“Where?”
“On the corner of 58th Street.”
“Did I see you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I was in a cab. But not in the singular, either. You would have to say, ‘Did we see you?’ There were three of you.”
“All in gray herringbone?”
“Every one of you.”
I had a bottle of brandy, and I poured a tot for each of us, and I drank mine down and then so did Alice. Then she asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was taking my pulse.
“You would think the rooms would be nicer than this in the Waldorf,” she said, “even for eight dollars a day. If I was hiding, I wouldn’t hide in the Waldorf. I’d go downtown to a flophouse, like they do in the stories, for fifty cents a day. How is your pulse?”
“Eighty. I’m not hiding.”
“Eighty is good, isn’t it?”
“It’s all right. It’s normal,” I pointed out. “We’re both normal. We’re plain people with common sense.”
“Yes?”
“How was I? I mean, was I—”
“We. Say we. There were three of you. And I might as well tell you, I saw you outside the house. That makes four of you. I got the cab before you caught me, and when I looked back, there was another one of you. Five of you.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Yes, indeed, and you can thank your stars that I am not the hysterical type. How many of you are there, if I may ask?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Maybe fifty—maybe a hundred—maybe five hundred. I just don’t know.”
“You mean New York is full of you,” Alice nodded. “When I was a little girl, I used to read Alice in Wonderland and pretend it was me. Now I don’t have to pretend.”
“No, I guess you don’t. Tell me, Alice—just one or two things more—and then I’ll try to explain.”
I poured her another brandy and she drank it down neat, and said, “Oh, fine. I want to hear you explain about this.”
“Yes, yes, naturally you do. And I’m going to—that is as much as I understand, I’m going to, I am indeed—”
“You are babbling,” Alice interrupted, not without sympathy.
“I am, aren’t I? Well, there you are. What I meant is—when you saw the three of me, was I—were we quarrelling, angry or what?”
“Oh, no, getting along fine. Just so deep in a discussion you didn’t realize you had stopped traffic. Three of you are triplets, not any kind of triplets, but bald, forty-year old college-professor type triplets, identical of course, and dressed in that gray herringbone that all of the city must be talking about—oh, yes, and the sleeveless cashmere instead of a vest and the bright green bow-tie—”
“I don’t see how you can laugh at something like this.”
“I have problems of my own sanity,” Alice said. “Would you like another nip? Yes—I told Dunbar to go to hell, just as you advised me to.”
She poured the brandy for me, and her hand didn’t shake. Don’t ever tell me that any man knows the woman he is married to, not in twelve years and not in twenty years—not unless something happens that can’t happen, and most people live their lives without that.
“He called?”
“Yes. You said he would.”
“But I didn’t believe he would. What time?”
“Ten minutes to three, exactly. I checked the time.”
“Yes. What did he say—for God’s sake, Alice, what did he say?”
“If you had only said it was important, I would have listened more carefully.”
“But you did listen—please. Alice!”
“The trouble is, he doesn’t talk English even at best, and he was very excited. He’s building some kind of a silly machine in his basement—a field deviator or something of that sort—”
“I know. I know what he’s trying to do.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me.”
“I will, I will,” I pleaded. “I don’t quite understand it myself, to tell you the truth. He has some notion that space can be warped or bent—no, that doesn’t do it, but something like that. Knotted, perhaps. A tiny corner of it twisted into a knot—”
“You’re not making any sense at all, Bob. I think you’re excited. I think you’re upset.”
“Yes I’m upset! Going out of my mind! God damn it, Alice—what did he say?”
“That’s better,” Alice nodded. “I think it’s good for you to get angry, a sort of safety valve.”