For a moment Jimmy stopped, kneeling down to tie his shoe. A cold wind blew around him, making the evergreens sway slightly. Far off a train sounded, a dismal wail echoing through the gloom. He thought about dinner, Dad with his shoes off, reading the newspapers. His mother in the kitchen -- the
TV set murmuring to itself in the corner -- the warm, bright living-room.
TV set murmuring to itself in the corner -- the warm, bright living-room.
A buggie. Waiting and watching, crouched silently up in the tree.
It was old. He knew that at once. There was a dryness about it, an odor of age and dust. An ancient gray shape, silent and unmoving, wrapped around the trunk and branches of the evergreen. A mass of cobwebs, dusty strands and webs of gray wrapped and trailing across the tree. A nebulous wispy presence that made the hackles of his neck rise.
The shape began to move but so slowly he might not have noticed. It was sliding around the trunk, feeling its way carefully, a little at a time. As if it were sightless. Feeling its way inch by inch, an unseeing gray ball of cobwebs and dust.
Jimmy moved back from the fence. It was completely dark. The sky was black above him. A few stars glittered distantly, bits of remote fire. Far down the street a bus rumbled, turning a corner.
A buggie -- clinging to the tree above him. Jimmy struggled, pulling himself away. His heart was thumping painfully, choking him. He could hardly breathe. His vision blurred, fading and receding. The buggie was only a little way from him, only a few yards above his head.
Help -- he had to get help. Men with poles to push the buggie down -- people -- right away. He closed his eyes and pushed away from the fence. He seemed to be in a vast tide, a rushing ocean dragging at him, surging over his body, holding him where he was. He could not break away. He was caught. He strained, pushing against it. One step... another step... a third -
And then he heard it.
Or rather felt it. There was no sound. It was like drumming, a kind of murmuring like the sea, inside his head. The drumming lapped against his mind, beating gently around him. He halted. The murmuring was soft, rhythmic. But insistent -- urgent. It began to separate, gaining form -- form and substance. It flowed, breaking up into distinct sensations, images, scenes.
Scenes -- of another world, its world. The buggie was talking to him, telling him about its world, spinning out scene after scene with anxious haste.
"Get away," Jimmy muttered thickly.
But the scenes still came, urgently, insistently, lapping at his mind.
Plains -- a vast desert without limit or end. Dark red, cracked and scored with ravines. A far line of blunted hills, dust-covered, corroded. A great basin off to the right, an endless empty piepan with white-crusted salt riming it, a bitter ash where water had once lapped.
"Get away!" Jimmy muttered again, moving a step back.
The scenes grew. Dead sky, particles of sand, whipped along, carried endlessly. Sheets of sand, vast billowing clouds of sand and dust, blowing endlessly across the cracked surface of the planet. A few scrawny plants growing by rocks. In the shadows of the mountains great spiders with old webs, dust-covered, spun centuries ago. Dead spiders, lodged in cracks.
A scene expanded. Some sort of artificial pipe, jutting up from the red-baked ground. A vent -underground quarters. The view changed. He was seeing below, down into the core of the planet -- layer after layer of crumpled rock. A withered wrinkled planet without fire or life or moisture of any kind. Its skin cracking, its pulp drying out and blowing up in clouds of dust. Far down in the core a tank of some sort -- a chamber sunk in the heart of the planet.
He was inside the tank. Buggies were everywhere, sliding and moving around. Machines, construction of different kinds, buildings, plants in rows, generators, homes, rooms of complex equipment.
Sections of the tank were closed off -- bolted shut. Rusty, metal doors -- machinery sinking into decay -- valves closed, pipes rusting away -- dials cracked and broken. Lines clogged -- teeth missing from gears -- more and more sections closed. Fewer buggies -- fewer and fewer...
The scene changed. Earth, seen from a long way off -- a distant green sphere, turning slowly, cloud-covered. Broad oceans, blue water miles deep -- moist atmosphere. The buggies drifting through empty reaches of space, drifting slowly toward Earth, year after year. Drifting endlessly in the dark wastes with agonizing slowness.
wastes with agonizing slowness.
On the surface of the water flat spheres drifted, huge metal discs. Floating units, artificially built, several hundred feet around. Buggies rested silently on the discs, absorbing water and minerals from the ocean under them.
The buggie was trying to tell him something, something about itself. Discs on the water -- the buggies wanted to use the water, to live on the water, on the surface of the ocean. Big surface discs, covered with buggies -- it wanted him to know that, to see the discs, the water discs.
The buggies would live on the water, not on the land. Only the water -- they wanted his permission. They wanted to use the water. That was what it was trying to tell him -- that they wanted to use the surface of the water between the continents. Now the buggie was asking, imploring. It wanted to know. It wanted him to say, to answer, to give his permission. It was waiting to hear, waiting and hoping -- imploring...
The scenes faded, winking out of his mind. Jimmy stumbled back, falling against the curb. He leaped up again, wiping damp grass from his hands. He was standing in the gutter. He could still see the buggie resting among the branches of the evergreen. It was almost invisible. He could scarcely make it out.
The drumming had receded, left his mind. The buggie had withdrawn.
Jimmy turned and fled. He ran across the street and down the other side, sobbing for breath. He came to a corner and turned up Douglas Street. At the bus-stop stood a heavy-set man with a lunchbucket under his arm.
Jimmy ran up to the man. "A buggie. In the tree." He gasped for breath. "In the big tree."
The man grunted. "Run along, kid."
"A buggie!" Jimmy's voice rose in panic, shrill and insistent. "A buggie up in the tree!"
Two men loomed up out of the darkness. "What? A buggie?"
"Where?"
More people appeared. "Where is it?"
Jimmy pointed, gesturing. "Pomeroy Estate. The tree. By the fence." He waved, gasping.
A cop appeared. "What's going on?"
"The kid's found a buggie. Somebody get a pole."
"Show me where it is," the cop said, grabbing hold of Jimmy's arm. "Come on."
Jimmy led them back down the street, to the brick wall. He hung back, away from the fence. "Up there."
"Which tree?"
"That one -- I think."
A flashlight flicked on, picking its way among the evergreens. In the Pomeroy house lights came on. The front door opened.
"What's going on there?" Mr Pomeroy's voice echoed angrily.
"Got a buggie. Keep back."
Mr Pomeroy's door slammed quickly shut.
"There it is!" Jimmy pointed up. "That tree." His heart almost stopped beating. "There. Up there!"
"Where?"
"I see it." The cop moved back, his pistol out.
"You can't shoot it. Bullets go right through."
"Somebody get a pole."
"Too high for a pole."
"Get a torch."
"Somebody bring a torch!"
Two men ran off. Cars were stopping. A police car slid to a halt, its siren whirring into silence. Doors opened, men came running over. A searchlight flashed on, dazzling them. It found the buggie and locked into place.
Two men ran off. Cars were stopping. A police car slid to a halt, its siren whirring into silence. Doors opened, men came running over. A searchlight flashed on, dazzling them. It found the buggie and locked into place.