The Cosmic Puppets Read online

  “But he’s not interested in books,” Miss James protested. “He never comes to the library.”

  Barton was silent for a time. Then he asked, “What would it mean if somebody said, ‘The one on the far side. The one with his hands out.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  Miss James and Doctor Meade were baffled. “Sounds like a game,” Doctor Meade muttered.

  “No,” Barton answered. “Not a game.” And he meant it. “Let it go. Forget I said anything.”

  Miss James leaned toward him. “Mr. Barton, I may be wrong, but I receive the distinct impression that you think there’s something here. Something very important here in Millgate. Am I right?”

  Barton’s lips twisted. “There’s something going on. Beyond human awareness.”

  “Here? In Millgate?”

  Words forced their way between Barton’s lips. “I’ve got to find out. I can’t go on like this. Somebody in this town must know. You can’t all sit around and pretend everything is perfectly ordinary! Somebody in this town knows the real story.”

  “Story about what?” Meade rumbled, perplexed.

  “About me.”

  They were both agitated. “How do you mean?” Miss James faltered. “Is there somebody here who knows you?”

  “There’s somebody here who knows everything. The why and how. Something I don’t understand. Something ominous and alien. And you all sit around and enjoy yourselves.” He got abruptly to his feet. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted. I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going?” Meade demanded.

  “Up to my room. To get some sleep.”

  “Look here, Barton. I’ll give you a few phenobarbitals. They’ll help calm you. And if you want, drop up to the hospital tomorrow. I’ll give you a check-up. Seems to me you’re under a hell of a strain. In a young man like you that’s somewhat—”

  “Mr. Barton,” Miss James said softly, but insistently, with a fixed smile on her face, “I assure you there’s nothing strange about Millgate. I wish there were. It’s the most ordinary town you could find. If I thought there was anything going on here of any interest whatsoever, I’d be the first to want to learn more.”

  Barton opened his mouth to answer. But the words never came. They were bitten off, lost forever. What he saw made even the memory of them dissolve into nothingness.

  Two shapes, faintly luminous, emerged from one end of the porch. A man and a woman, walking together, holding hands. They appeared to be talking, but no sound came. They moved silently, calmly, across the porch, toward the opposite wall. They passed within a foot of Barton; he could see their faces clearly. They were young. The woman had long blonde hair, heavy twisted braids that fell down her neck and shoulders. A thin, sharp face. Pale skin, smooth and perfect. Exquisite lips and teeth. And the young man beside her was equally handsome.

  Neither of them noticed Barton or the boarders sitting on their chairs. Their eyes were shut tight. They passed through the chairs, the couch, through the reclining boarders. Through Doctor Meade and Miss James, and then through the far wall. Abruptly, they were gone. The two half-luminous shapes had vanished as quickly as they had come. Without a sound.

  “Good God,” Barton managed at last. “Did you see them?” No one had stirred. Some of the boarders had stopped their conversation momentarily, but now they resumed their low murmurs as if nothing had happened. “Did you see them?” he demanded excitedly.

  Miss James seemed puzzled. “Of course,” she murmured. “We all saw them. They come through here about this time each evening. They’re taking a walk. A nice couple, don’t you think?”

  “But—who—what—” Barton gasped.

  “Is this the first time you’ve seen Wanderers?” Meade asked. His calm was suddenly shaken. “You mean you don’t have Wanderers where you come from?”

  “No,” Barton said. Everyone was watching him in amazement. “What are they? They walked through the walls. Through the furniture. Through you!”

  “Of course,” Miss James said primly. “That’s why they’re called Wanderers. They can go anywhere. Through anything. Didn’t you know that?”

  “How long has it been going on?” Barton demanded.

  The answer didn’t really surprise him. But the calmness of it did. “Always,” Miss James said. “As long as I can recall.”

  “Seems to me there’ve always been Wanderers,” Doctor Meade agreed, puffing on his cigar. “But it’s perfectly natural. What’s so strange about that?”

  5

  THE MORNING WAS warm and sunny. The dew hadn’t been baked off the weeds yet. The sky was a mild, hazy blue, not yet heated up to blazing incandescence. That would come later, as the sun climbed toward its zenith. A faint breeze stirred the cedars that grew in a line along the slope behind the immense stone building. The cedars cast pools of shade; they were responsible for the name Shady House.

  Shady House overlooked the town proper. A single road twisted up the rise to the flat surface where the building stretched out. The grounds were carefully tended. Flowers and trees, and a long wood fence that formed a protecting square. Patients could be seen lounging around, sitting on benches, chairs, even stretched out on the warm ground, resting. There was an air of peace and quietude about the hospital. Some place in its depths Doctor Meade was working. Probably down in his littered office, with his microscope and slides and x-rays and chemicals.

  Mary crouched in a concealed hollow, just beyond the line of towering cedars. The hard soil had been scooped out by shovels when Shady House was built. Where she sat she couldn’t be seen by anyone at the House. The cedars and the wall of rock and earth cut the view off sharply. Spread out beneath her, and around her on three sides, was the valley. And beyond that, the eternal ring of mountains, blue and green, tipped with faint hazy white. Silent and unmoving.

  “Go on,” Mary said. She shifted a little, tucked her slim legs under her, and made herself more comfortable. She was listening intently, trying not to miss a single word.

  “It was pure chance,” the bee continued. Its voice was thin and faint, almost lost in the stirring early-morning breeze that rustled through the cedars. It was perched on the leaf of a flower, close to the girl’s ear. “We happened to be scouting in that area. No one saw him go in. All at once he came out, and we dived on him. I wish there had been more of us; he doesn’t often come so far this way. He was actually over the line.”

  Mary was deep in thought. The sunlight glinted on her black hair, shiny and heavy around her neck. Her dark eyes sparkled as she asked. “Have you been able to tell what he’s doing in there?”

  “Not very well. He’s set up some kind of interference around the whole place. We can’t get close. Have to depend on secondary information. Unreliable, as you know.”

  “You think he’s assembling defensive units? Or—”

  “Or worse. He may be nearing some kind of overt stage. He’s built a lot of containers. Of various sizes. There’s a certain irony in this. The scouts we’ve sent in have died in the interference zone. He’s collected their corpses every day and used them for feed. This amuses him.”

  Automatically, Mary reached out her small shoe and crushed a black grass-spider that was hurrying by. “I know,” she said slowly. “After I left the game yesterday, he golemed the clay I was using. That’s a bad sign. He must feel he’s gaining or he wouldn’t try it on my clay. He knows the risk. Clay gathered by others is unstable. And I must have left some kind of imprint.”

  “It’s probably true that he has a minor advantage,” the bee answered. “He’s a tireless worker. Nevertheless, he displayed overt fear when we attacked him. He’s still vulnerable. And he knows it.”

  Mary pulled a blade of grass loose and thoughtfully chewed it between her white teeth. “Both his figures attempted to escape. One came very close. It ran directly toward me, in the station wagon. But I didn’t dare stop.”

  “Who is this man?” the bee asked. “This person from outside. It’s unique
, someone coming through the barrier. You think he might be imitation? Something projected out, then brought in to appear as an external factor? So far, he doesn’t really seem to have made any difference.”

  Mary raised her dark eyes. “No, not so far. But I think he will.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m fairly sure. If—”

  “If what?” The bee was interested.

  Mary ignored it; she was deep in thought. “He’s in a curious situation,” she murmured. “He’s already faced with the fact that his memories don’t agree with the situation.”

  “They don’t?”

  “Of course not. He’s become aware of major discrepancies. Essentially, he remembers a completely different town, with totally different people.” She killed another small spider that was moving cautiously up. For a time she studied its inert body. “And he’s the kind of person who won’t be satisfied until he understands the situation.”

  “He makes things confusing,” the bee complained.

  “For whom? For me?” Mary got up slowly and brushed grass from her jeans. “For Peter, perhaps. He’s made so many careful plans.”

  The bee flew up from its leaf and landed on the girl’s collar. “Perhaps he’ll try to learn something from this man.”

  Mary laughed. “He’d like to, of course. But there’s not much the man can tell him. He’s so confused and uncertain.”

  “Peter will try. He’s tireless, the way he explores every possibility for knowledge. Almost like a bee.”

  Mary agreed, as she walked back up the slope toward the cedars. “Yes, he’s tireless, but a little too confident. He may wind up by doing himself more harm than good. In trying to find out things he may reveal more than he learns. The man, I think, is clever. And he must find out about himself. He’ll probably come out ahead; that’s been the pattern, so far.”

  Barton made sure no one was around. He stood close to the old-fashioned telephone, turned so he could look up and down the hall, at all the doors and the stairs at the far end, and then dropped a dime into the coin slot.

  “Number please,” the tinny voice said in his ear.

  He asked for the Calhoun Hotel in Martinsville. After three more dimes and a series of clicks and waits, there was a distant buzzing.

  “Calhoun Hotel,” a far-off voice came, a man’s sleepy drawl.

  “Let me talk to Mrs. Barton. In 204.”

  Another pause. More clicks. Then—

  “Ted!” Peg’s voice, wild with impatience and alarm. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me. I suppose.”

  “Where are you? In the name of heaven, are you going to just leave me here in this awful hotel?” Her voice rose in shrill hysteria. “Ted, I’ve had enough. I can’t stand it anymore. You’ve got the car; I can’t do anything, go anywhere, and you’re acting like a crazy person!”

  Barton spoke close to the phone, voice muted. “I tried to explain it to you. This town. It’s not what I remember. My mind’s been tampered with, I think. Something I found in the newspaper office makes me sure even my identity isn’t—”

  “Good God,” Peg cut in. “We haven’t got time to waste looking up your childhood illusions! How long are you going to keep this up?”

  “I don’t know,” Barton answered helplessly. “There’s so much I don’t understand. If I knew more I’d tell you.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Ted,” Peg said, with hard calm, “if you don’t come back and get me in the next twenty-four hours, I’m leaving. I have enough money to get back up to Washington. You know I’ve got friends there. You won’t see me again, except perhaps in court.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  Barton licked his lips. “Peg, I’ve got to stay here. I’ve learned a few things, not much, but a little. Enough to tell me I’m on the right track. If I stay here long enough I’ll be able to crack this. Forces are operating here, powers that don’t seem bound by—”

  There was a sharp click. Peg had hung up.

  Barton placed the receiver back on its hook. His mind was blank. He moved aimlessly away from the phone, hands in his pockets. Well, that was that. She meant it, every damn word. He’d show up in Martinsville, and she wouldn’t be there.

  A small shape detached itself from behind a table and potted fern. “Hello,” Peter said calmly. He played with a clump of squirming things, black lumps that crawled up his wrist and over his hands.

  “What’s that?” Barton demanded, sickened.

  “These?” Peter blinked. “Spiders.” He captured them and thrust them into his pocket. “Are you going driving? I thought maybe I could ride in your car with you.”

  The boy had been there all the time. Hidden behind the fern. Strange, he hadn’t seen him; he had passed by the fern on his way to the phone. “Why?” Barton demanded bluntly.

  The boy fidgeted. His smooth face twisted hopefully. “I’ve decided to let you see my ledge.”

  “Oh?” Barton tried to look indifferent, but inside, his pulse rate abruptly changed. Maybe he’d learn something. “It might be arranged.” Barton said. “How far is it?”

  “Not far.” Peter hurried to the front door and pushed it open. “I’ll show you the way.”

  Barton followed slowly after him. The front porch was deserted. Empty chairs and couches, drab and terribly old. It gave him an uneasy chill; the two Wanderers had come through here last night. He touched the wall of the porch experimentally. Solid. Yet, the two youthful figures had passed calmly through, and through the chairs and reclining boarders.

  Could they pass through him?

  “Come on!” Peter shouted. He stood by the dusty yellow Packard, tugging impatiently at the door handle.

  Barton got behind the wheel and the boy slid quickly in beside him. As he turned on the motor he found the boy carefully examining the corners of the car, lifting the seat cushions, squatting down on the floor and peering under the front seat.

  “What are you looking for?” Barton demanded.

  “Bees.” Peter emerged breathlessly. “Can we keep the windows rolled up? They try to fly in, along the way.”

  Barton released the brake, and the car glided out onto the main street. “What’s wrong with bees? You afraid of them? You’re not afraid of spiders.”

  Peter touched his still-swollen neck by way of an answer. “Turn to the right,” he ordered. He leaned back contentedly, feet out, hands in his pockets. “Make a complete circle up Jefferson and head back the other way.”

  The ledge provided a vast panoramic view of the valley and the hills that ringed it on all sides. Barton seated himself on the rocky ground and got out his pack of cigarettes. He took a deep lungful of the warm midday air. The ledge was partly shaded by bushes and shrubs. Cool and quiet with the valley spread out below. The sun shone down through the thick blanket of blue haze that collected around the distant peaks. Nothing stirred. The fields, farms, roads and houses, all were utterly motionless.

  Peter squatted beside him. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What were you and Doctor Meade talking about last night? I couldn’t hear.”

  “Maybe it was none of your business.”

  The boy flushed and his lips set in a sullen line. “I can’t stand him and his smelly cigars. And his silver toothpick.” He got out some of his spiders from his pocket and let them run over his hands and down his sleeves. Barton moved a little way off and tried to ignore it.

  After a moment Peter asked, “Can I have a cigarette?”

  “No.”

  The boy’s face fell. “All right for you.” But he brightened almost at once. “What did you think of the two Wanderers last night? Weren’t they something?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Barton answered casually. “You see them fairly often.”

  “I’d sure like to know how they do it,” Peter said feelingly. Abruptly he regretted expressing his emotions. He gathered his spiders up and tossed them down
the slope. They scrambled off excitedly and he pretended to watch them.

  A thought struck Barton. “Aren’t you afraid of bees, out here? If one flew after you, there wouldn’t be any place to hide.”

  Peter laughed with regained contempt. “Bees don’t come here. It’s too far in.”

  “In?”

  “In fact,” Peter continued, with cutting superiority, “this is just about the safest place in the world.”

  Barton couldn’t make anything out of the boy’s words. After a period of silence he observed cautiously, “The haze is pretty thick, today.”

  “The what?”

  “The haze.” Barton indicated the pools of silent blue obscuring the far peaks. “It’s from the heat.”

  Peter’s face managed to show even more contempt. “That’s not haze. That’s him!”

  “Oh?” Barton tensed. Maybe he was finally going to learn something—if he played it careful. “Who do you mean?”

  Peter pointed. “Don’t you see him? He’s sure big. Just about the biggest there is. And old. He’s older than everything else put together. Even older than the world.”

  Barton saw nothing. Only haze, mountains, the blue sky. Peter dug in his pocket and got out what looked like a cheap nickel-plated magnifying glass. He handed it to Barton. Barton turned it around foolishly; he started to give it back, but Peter stopped him. “Look through it! At the mountains!”

  Barton looked. And saw it. The glass was a lens-filter of some kind. It cut the haze, made it clear and sharp.

  He had figured it out wrong. He had expected him to be part of the scene. He was the scene. He was the whole far side of the world, the edge of the valley, the mountains, the sky, everything. The whole distant rim of the universe swept up in a massive column, a cosmic tower of being, which gained shape and substance as he focused the filter-lens.

  It was a man, all right. His feet were planted on the floor of the valley; the valley became his feet at the farthest edge. His legs were the mountains—or the mountains were his legs; Barton couldn’t tell which. Two columns, spread apart, wide and solid. Firmly planted and balanced. His body was the mass of blue-gray haze, or what he had thought was haze. Where the mountains joined the sky, the immense torso of the man came into being.