I broke off. Doc Labyrinth had leaped back, jerking his hand out of the grass. He clutched his wrist, shuddering with pain.
“What is it?” I hurried over. Trembling, he held his little old hand out to me. “What is it? What happened?”
I turned the hand over. All across the back of it were marks, red cuts that swelled even as I watched. He had been stung, stung or bitten by something in the grass. I looked down, kicking the grass with my foot.
There was a stir. A little golden ball rolled quickly away, back toward the bushes. It was covered with spines like a nettle.
“Catch it!” Labyrinth cried. “Quick!”
I went after it, holding out my handkerchief, trying to avoid the spines. The sphere rolled frantically, trying to get away, but finally I got it into the handkerchief.
Labyrinth stared at the struggling handkerchief as I stood up. “I can hardly believe it,” he said. “We’d better go back to the house.”
“What is it?”
“One of the bach bugs. But it’s changed…”
We made our way back along the path, toward the house, feeling our way through the darkness. I went first, pushing the branches aside, and Labyrinth followed behind, moody and withdrawn, rubbing his hand from time to time.
We entered the yard and went up to the back steps of the house, onto the porch. Labyrinth unlocked the door and we went into the kitchen. He snapped on the light and hurried to the sink to bathe his hand.
I took an empty fruit jar from the cupboard and carefully dropped the bach bug into it. The golden ball rolled testily around as I clamped the lid on. I sat down at the table. Neither of us spoke, Labyrinth at the sink, running cold water over his stung hand, I at the table, uncomfortably watching the golden ball in the fruit jar trying to find some way to escape.
“Well?” I said at last.
“There’s no doubt.” Labyrinth came over and sat down opposite me. “It’s undergone some metamorphosis. It certainly didn’t have poisoned spines to start with. You know, it’s a good thing that I played my Noah role carefully.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made them all neuter. They can’t reproduce. There will be no second generation. When these die, that will be the end of it.”
“I must say I’m glad you thought of that.”
“I wonder,” Labyrinth murmured. “I wonder how it would sound, now, this way.”
“What?”
“The sphere, the bach bug. That’s the real test, isn’t it? I could put it back through the Machine. We could see. Do you want to find out?”
“Whatever you say, Doc,” I said. “It’s up to you. But don’t get your hopes up too far.”
He picked up the fruit jar carefully and we walked downstairs, down the steep flights of steps to the cellar. I made out an immense column of dull metal rising up in the corner, by the laundry tubs. A strange feeling went through me. It was the Preserving Machine.
“So this is it,” I said.
“Yes, this is it.” Labyrinth turned the controls on and worked with them for a time. At last he took the jar and held it over the hopper. He removed the lid carefully, and the bach bug dropped reluctantly from the jar, into the Machine. Labyrinth closed the hopper after it.
“Here we go,” he said. He threw the control and the Machine began to operate. Labyrinth folded his arms and we waited. Outside the night came on, shutting out the light, squeezing it out of existence. At last an indicator on the face of the Machine blinked red. The Doc turned the control to OFF and we stood in silence, neither of us wanting to be the one who opened it.
“Well?” I said finally. “Which one of us is going to look?”
Labyrinth stirred. He pushed the slot-piece aside and reached into the Machine. His fingers came out grasping a slim sheet, a score of music. He handed it to me. “This is the result,” he said. “We can go upstairs and play it.”
We went back up to the music room. Labyrinth sat down before the grand piano and I passed him back the score. He opened it and studied it for a moment, his face blank, without expression. Then he began to play.
I listened to the music. It was hideous. I have never heard anything like it. It was distorted, diabolical, without sense or meaning, except, perhaps, an alien, disconcerting meaning that should never have been there. I could believe only with the greatest effort that it had once been a Bach Fugue, part of a most orderly and respected work.
“That settles it,” Labyrinth said. He stood up, took the score in his hands, and tore it to shreds.
As we made our way down the path to my car I said, “I guess the struggle for survival is a force bigger than any human ethos. It makes our precious morals and manners look a little thin.”
Labyrinth agreed. “Perhaps nothing can be done, then, to save those manners and morals.”
“Only time will tell,” I said. “Even though this method failed, some other may work; something that we can’t foresee or predict now may come along, some day.”
I said good night and got into my car. It was pitch dark; night had fallen completely. I switched on my headlights and moved off down the road, driving into the utter darkness. There were no other cars in sight anywhere. I was alone, and very cold.
At the corner I stopped, slowing down to change gears. Something moved suddenly at the curb, something by the base of a huge sycamore tree, in the darkness. I peered out, trying to see what it was.
At the base of the sycamore tree a huge dun-colored beetle was building something, putting a bit of mud into place on a strange, awkward structure. I watched the beetle for a time, puzzled and curious, until at last it noticed me and stopped. The beetle turned abruptly and entered its building, snapping the door firmly shut behind it.
I drove away.
Expendable
The man came out on the front porch and examined the day. Bright and cold—with dew on the lawns. He buttoned his coat and put his hands in his pockets.
As the man started down the steps the two caterpillars waiting by the mailbox twitched with interest.
“There he goes,” the first one said. “Send in your report.”
As the other began to rotate his vanes the man stopped, turning quickly.
“I heard that,” he said. He brought his foot down against the wall, scraping the caterpillars off, onto the concrete. He crushed them.
Then he hurried down the path to the sidewalk. As he walked he looked around him. In the cherry tree a bird was hopping, pecking bright-eyed at the cherries. The man studied him. All right? Or—The bird flew off. Birds all right. No harm from them.
He went on. At the corner he brushed against a spider web, crossed from the bushes to the telephone pole. His heart pounded. He tore away, batting the air. As he went on he glanced over his shoulder. The spider was coming slowly down the bush, feeling out the damage to his web.
Hard to tell about spiders. Difficult to figure out. More facts needed—No contact, yet.
He waited at the bus stop, stomping his feet to keep them warm.
The bus came and he boarded it, feeling a sudden pleasure as he took his seat with all the warm, silent people, staring indifferently ahead. A vague flow of security poured through him.
He grinned, and relaxed, the first time in days.
The bus went down the street.
Tirmus waved his antennae excitedly.
“Vote, then, if you want.” He hurried past them, up onto the mound. “But let me say what I said yesterday, before you start.”
“We already know it all,” Lala said impatiently. “Let’s get moving. We have the plans worked out. What’s holding us up?”
“More reason for me to speak.” Tirmus gazed around at the assembled gods. “The entire Hill is ready to march against the giant in question. Why? We know he can’t communicate to his fellows—It’s out of the question. The type of vibration, the language they use, makes it impossible to convey such ideas as he holds about us, about our—”
“Nonsense.” Lala stepped up. “Giants communicate well enough.”