The voice said, "Probably."
"Well, we've got to move fast, Nate. I know it was my ball and I bobbled it, I admit that, but we've got to find that guy. Swear out a warrant, or -- how would this be -- suppose we tell the. Health Service people he's infected with bubonic plague, or something? ... Nate?"
The voice said, "There's a lot of noise here."
Wall heard a faint, distant murmur, as if a crowd of people were talking (shouting?) in the background. Then there were some underwater clicks, and MacDonald's voice again: "What are your plans now, Gil?"
"Plans?" said Wall, taken aback. "Well, I can either stay here -- I've got a date with the local chief of police, I can keep that, if we decide to work through him -- Or if you want me to come back for a skull session, Nate, I can charter a plane. But listen, we've got to get on the ball with this thing. I mean, if that maniac, Ewing, ever gets it into his head to distribute that thing, that Gismo -- Nate, my mind just boggles. I can't picture it."
"I'm watching it," said MacDonald's voice indistinctly.
"What?" said Wall after a moment. "What did you say, Nate?"
"I'm watching it happen," said MacDonald's voice. "What did you think Ewing was doing all this time?"
What?" said Wall again.
"Those things were in the morning mail delivery here. Two in a box. At least a hundred people got them. Along about ten, people started copying them and giving them away to their friends and relations. Now they're fighting in the streets."
"Nate -- " said Wall brokenly.
"I've got mine. Sent Crawford down for them. Packing now, or you wouldn't have got me. I happen to know a place in Wyoming that's built like a castle -- you could hold off an army there. Well, take care of yourself, Gil. Nobody else will."
"Nate, give me a minute now, I just can't believe it -- "
"Turn on your TV," said MacDonald. There was a click, and the wire went dead.
Wall stared blankly at the receiver, then turned slowly. There was a little portable TV set standing on the bench. He walked over to it, leaving, the telephone receiver swinging at the end of its cord, and turned on the switch. The TV blurted: " -- and down Sunset Boulevard, from Olvera Street west. And here's a flash." The screen lighted, showed a raster, but no face appeared. "Police Chief Victor Corsi has issued a call for special volunteer policemen to handle the crowds. It's my hunch he won't get any. The big question today is, Have you got a Gismo? And believe me, nothing else matters. This station will stay on the air to keep you informed as long as possible, but no thanks to its poltroon of a general manager, I. W. Kidder, or its revolting program director, Douglas M. Dow, who took off for the hills as soon as they got theirs. For my own part, I say balls to them both. And balls to the Pacific Broadcasting Company and all its little subsidiaries! Balls to Mayor Needham! And balls to -- "
Wall turned the set off. The voice stopped; the bright frame shrank, twitched, shriveled to a point of light, that faded and went out.
3
Ewing opened the back screen door and stepped out into the yard. It was a still, cloudless morning; the smog was all down in the valley. The tall dry grass was uncomfortable to walk in, and he moved automatically down the shallow slope to stand under the pepper tree. In the cool cavern behind the hanging curtain of branches, the ground was bare except for the carpet of red leaves and the hard little berries. The kids had been building a hut in here with old lumber from the fence, and their toys were scattered around. Ewing's ear registered the sudden outburst of shrill voices inside the house, and he frowned unhappily. That was not so good: you could hear them half a mile away, and they were all over the mountain in the daytime. But you couldn't keep children locked up like criminals.
Anyhow, they had found a good place. The cottage stood on its own half-acre terrace more than halfway up the mountainside. Above it there was only the scrubby slope of the mountain itself, bone-dry and littered with boulders, and a row of desiccated palm trees along the irrigation canal. The one neighboring house, between the cottage and the hill road, was empty and fire-gutted. Below the house there was another terrace, where evidently previous tenants had had a kitchen garden; then the land sloped abruptly down and became an orchard of tiny orange trees. Ewing had seen the owner's name on a mailbox, down at the bottom of the mountain: Lo Vecchio, something like that. What was going to happen to him and his orchard now?
Down below, the valley lay spread out, rolling down and receding into an improbable blueness. Ewing could see the road, diminishing to a tiny yellowish thread, and the cross-hatched patterns of tilled fields. The horizon curved around him on three sides. Eucalyptus trees masked the highways; except for an occasional airplane, or a car going or coming in the residential area just below, the world around him might have been deserted.
The rattle of a laboring engine came echoing up in the clear air.
Ewing started, and peered fruitlessly off to his right, where trees screened the road. That sounded like somebody coming up the hill.
Trouble. It might be somebody from the Adventist colony down below, paying a neighborly call, but from what Ewing had seen, they all drove late-model cars. This sounded like a wreck. With his heart pumping in his throat, Ewing ran into the house, past a startled Fay and two round girl-faces at the breakfast table, and got the shotgun out of the closet. He made a second grab for the box of shells; two more jumps took him to the front porch. He was in time to see the car pull up on the road above the house.
It was a battered, dusty Lincoln coupe with its trunk bulging open. All the chrome trim was missing from the body and fenders, and the denuded strips were measled with rust. A fine spume of steam rose from the radiator.
"Dave boy!" shouted the driver, popping up on the far side of the car like a marionette. He was a dusty gray man in a faded jacket and sweater; Ewing lowered the gun and stared at him. That cracked, cheerful voice -
"Platt!" he said, in mingled relief and exasperation.
"None other! The very same! In the flesh!" Platt came stork-legged down the driveway, moving with a jerky, nervous energy, elbows pumping, his long face split in a yellow grin. He grabbed Ewing's hand and shook it hard; his water-gray eyes were bright and sparkling. "Gotcha! You can't hide from me, boy! Ends of the earth! Well, hell, it's good to see you, Dave -- hello, Fay, hello kids -- but for God's sake" -- Ewing turned to see that his family was clustered in the doorway; he turned back as Platt's stream of talk went on uninterrupted -"ask a man in and give him a drink of water if you haven't got anything better. I'm so parched I'm spitting sand. What are you up here, eagles? Hell, is this Elaine? My God, you're big! Pretty as your old lady, too. And who's this?"
Kathy, looking suspicious, retired behind her mother's skirts. Elaine, who was twelve, was blushing like a debutante. Somehow they were all moving into the living room, and Platt threw himself into the only upholstered chair with a shout of comfort. He was leading forward the next instant, still talking, fumbling a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket, striking a shaky light, dropping the match, pulling Elaine into a one-armed embrace and winking at Kathy.
Platt was a man of galloping enthusiasms; a good experimental physicist, but a theorist whom nobody took seriously. He had a new theory every year, and believed in every one with a frantic, whole-souled earnestness. His greatest love was rocketry, but he had never succeeded in getting a clearance to work on classified projects. Platt's frustration was acute, but only seemed to wind his spring tighter. He changed jobs frequently, and popped in and out of Ewing's life: the last time they had met was in 1967.