"I want to see," Tommy said. He pushed Dave off the chair onto the bathroom floor. "Come on."
Dave withdrew sullenly. "It's our house."
Tommy stepped cautiously up onto the chair. He put his eye to the crack, his face against the wall. For a time he saw nothing. The crack was narrow and the light on the other side was bad. Then, gradually, he began to make out shapes, forms beyond the wall.
Edward Billings was sitting at an immense old-fashioned desk. He had stopped typing and was resting his eyes. From his vest pocket he had taken a round pocket watch. Slowly, carefully, he wound the great watch. Without his glasses his lean, withered face seemed naked and bleak, the features of some elderly bird. Then he put his glasses on again and drew his chair closer to the desk.
He began to type, working with expert fingers the towering mass of metal and parts that reared up before him. Again the ominous booming echoed through the house, resuming its insistent beat.
Mr Billings's room was dark and littered. Books and papers lay everywhere, in piles and stacks, on the desk, on the table, in heaps on the floor. The walls were covered with charts, anatomy charts, maps, astronomy charts, signs of the zodiac. By the windows rows of dust-covered chemical bottles and packages lay stacked. A stuffed bird stood on the top of the bookcase, gray and drooping. On the desk was a huge magnifying glass, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, a postage stamp box, a bone letter opener. Against the door a curling strip of flypaper moved with the air currents rising from the gas heater.
The remains of a magic lantern lay against one wall. A black satchel with clothes piled on it. Shirts and socks and a long frock coat, faded and threadbare. Heaps of newspapers and magazines, tied with brown cord. A great black umbrella against the table, a pool of sticky water around its metal point. A glass frame of dried butterflies, pressed into yellowing cotton.
And at the desk the huge old man hunched over his ancient typewriter and heaps of notes and papers.
"Gosh," Tommy said.
"Gosh," Tommy said.
The steady thumping of the great typewriter made the things in the bathroom rattle and shake, the light fixture, the bottles and tubes in the medicine cabinet. Even the floor under the children's feet.
"He's some kind of Communist agent," Joan said. "He's drawing maps of the city so he can set off bombs when Moscow gives the word."
The heck he is," Dave said angrily.
"Don't you see all the maps and pencils and papers? Why else would --"
"Be quiet," Dave snapped. "He will hear us. He is not a spy. He's too old to be a spy."
"What is he, then?"
"I don't know. But he isn't a spy. You're sure dumb. Anyhow, spies have beards."
"Maybe he's a criminal," Joan said.
"I talked to him once," Dave said. "He was coming downstairs. He spoke to me and gave me some candy out of a bag."
"What kind of candy was it?"
"I don't know. Hard candy. It wasn't any good."
"What's he do?" Tommy asked, turning from the crack.
"Sits in his room all day. Typing."
"Doesn't he work?"
Dave sneered. "That's what he does. He writes on his report. He's an official with a company."
"What company?"
"I forget."
"Doesn't he ever go out?"
"He goes out on the roof."
"On the roof?"
"He has a porch he goes out on. We fixed it. It's part of the apartment. He's got a garden. He comes downstairs and gets dirt from the back yard."
"Shhh!" Tommy warned. "He turned around."
Edward Billings had got to his feet. He was covering the typewriter with a black cloth, pushing it back and gathering up the pencils and erasers. He opened the desk drawer and dropped the pencils into it.
"He's through," Tommy said. "He's finished working."
The old man removed his glasses and put them away in a case. He dabbed at his forehead wearily, loosening his collar and necktie. His neck was long and the cords stood out from yellow, wrinkled skin. His adam's apple bobbed up and down as he sipped some water from a glass.
His eyes were blue and faded, almost without color. For a moment he gazed directly at Tommy, his hawk-like face blank. Then abruptly he left the room, going through a door.
"He's going to bed," Tommy said.
Mr Billings returned, a towel over his arm. At the desk he stopped and laid the towel over the back of the chair. He lifted the massive report book and carried it from the desk over to the bookcase, holding it tightly with both hands. It was heavy. He laid it down and left the room again.
The report was very close. Tommy could make out the gold letters stamped into the cracked leather binding. He gazed at the letters a long time -- until Joan finally pushed him away from the crack, shoving him impatiently off the chair.
Tommy stepped down and moved away, awed and fascinated by what he had seen. The great report book, the huge volume of material on which the old man worked, day after day. In the flickering light from the lamp on the desk he had easily been able to make out the gold-stamped words on the ragged leather binding.
PROJECT B: EARTH.
"Let's go," Dave said. "He'll come in here in a couple minutes. He might catch us watching."
"Let's go," Dave said. "He'll come in here in a couple minutes. He might catch us watching."
"So are you. So is Mom. So is everybody." He glanced at Tommy. "You afraid of him?"
Tommy shook his head. "I'd sure like to know what's in that book," he murmured. "I'd sure like to know what that old man is doing."
The late afternoon sunlight shone down bright and cold. Edward Billings came slowly down the back steps, an empty pail in one hand, rolled-up newspapers under his arm. He paused a moment, shielding his eyes and gazing around him. Then he disappeared into the back yard, pushing through the thick wet grass.
Tommy stepped out from behind the garage. He raced silently up the steps two at a time. He entered the building, hurrying down the dark corridor.
A moment later he stood before the door of Edward Billings's apartment, his chest rising and falling, listening intently.
There was no sound.
Tommy tried the knob. It turned easily. He pushed. The door swung open and a musty cloud of warm air drifted past him out into the corridor.
He had little time. The old man would be coming back with his pail of dirt from the yard.
Tommy entered the room and crossed to the bookcase, his heart pounding excitedly. The huge report book lay among heaps of notes and bundles of clippings. He pushed the papers away, sliding them from the book. He opened it quickly, at random, the thick pages crackling and bending.
Denmark.
Figures and facts. Endless facts, pages and columns, row after row. The lines of type danced before his eyes. He could make little out of them. He turned to another section.
New York.
Facts about New York. He struggled to understand the column heads. The number of people. What they did. How they lived. What they earned. How they spent their time. Their beliefs. Politics. Philosophy. Morals. Their age. Health. Intelligence. Graphs and statistics, averages and evaluations.
Evaluations. Appraisals. He shook his head and turned to another section.
California.
Population. Wealth. Activity of the state government. Ports and harbors. Facts, facts, facts -
Facts on everything. Everywhere. He thumbed through the report. On every part of the world. Every city, every state, every country. Any and all possible information.
Tommy closed the report uneasily. He wandered restlessly around the room, examining the heaps of notes and papers, the bundles of clippings and charts. The old man, typing day after day. Gathering facts, facts about the whole world. The earth. A report on the earth, the earth and everything on it. All the people. Everything they did and thought, their actions, deeds, achievements, beliefs, prejudices. A great report of all the information in the whole world.